Essay By Design | Book cover highlights of 2021 December 09, 2021 Adjusting to pandemic life in the past two years, we鈥檝e learned new ways to live, work, innovate, and flourish. Despite uncertainty, we鈥檝e done great things, shown abounding resilience and creativity. Read More
Essay How did we get to here? Dinopedia and the dinosaur renaissance December 01, 2021 Dinosaurs are among the most exciting and remarkable animals ever. Animals like the giant predator Tyrannosaurus, the elephant-sized, mega-horned Triceratops and the whale-sized, long-necked sauropods Brachiosaurus, Brontosaurus and the like are not just large and unusual, they鈥檙e off the charts when it comes to anatomy, physiology and behaviour. Read More
Essay Shock value:聽The聽life and death story of electricity November 22, 2021 It is an irony of our age that while electricity increasingly drives nearly every aspect of our daily lives, we continue to view it as some kind of mysterious external physical force that powers our appliances rather than an internal and vital biological force that animates our bodies. Read More
Essay Bob Dylan鈥檚 鈥淢urder Most Foul鈥� and National Memory November 22, 2021 This week marks the 58th anniversary of the assassination of JFK. Last year鈥檚 anniversary went nearly unnoticed in the press. Read More
Essay Rediscovering friendship November 12, 2021 Plagues and pandemics are nothing new in history with the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome certainly having their share. Read More
Essay Educating citizens November 11, 2021 The presidential election of 2016 prompted many academic leaders and faculty members to ponder the implications for their own institution. Read More
Essay Collaborative innovations in support of diverse voices November 10, 2021 A few weeks ago, I sat in a聽Zoom room with our social science team, in awe (again) of聽my colleagues鈥櫬燾ommitment and聽their聽embrace of change. Read More
Interview Margaret Jacobs on After One Hundred Winters November 09, 2021 After One Hundred Winters聽confronts the harsh truth that the United States was founded on the violent dispossession of Indigenous people and asks what reconciliation might mean in light of this haunted history. Read More
Essay Humanities to the rescue November 08, 2021 Environmentally speaking, it might be said that Western culture backed the wrong horse with both Christianity and capitalism. Each ingrained a self-centeredness鈥攔espectively, inter- and intra-species鈥攖hat has proven disastrous for the planet. Read More
Essay Stepping into A Dog鈥檚 World November 05, 2021 As I write these words, Bella is napping on the floor next to my desk, curled into herself like a large hairy black bean. Every so often, following an inner cue that remains mysterious to me, she stretches out and arches onto her back, feet to the sky, exposing a soft white belly. Read More
Essay So what鈥檚 new? Innovation in ancient Greek experience October 29, 2021 When I worked in business in the 1980s I was struck by the constant demand for the new. The company I worked in produced and stocked a wide range of well-designed products for a varied international market, but customers would regularly pass over existing designs鈥攅ven the most recent ones鈥攁nd ask 鈥淲hat鈥檚 new?鈥� Read More
Essay Roger Luckhurst on Gothic: An Illustrated History October 28, 2021 How can you hope to navigate a genre that starts with a bunch of gloomy British poets brooding in crepuscular graveyards in the 1740s and ended up recently delivering us the sixth film in the Sharknado franchise (where killer sharks get hurled around by tornados, obviously)? Read More
Essay Edgar Allan Poe鈥檚 suburban dream October 27, 2021 If there were ever an American writer you would not associate with the suburbs, it鈥檚 Edgar Allan Poe. His popular image tends to be that of an isolated figure, oblivious to his surroundings. Read More
Interview Judith Barringer on Olympia: A Cultural History October 26, 2021 The memory of ancient Olympia lives on in the form of the modern Olympic Games. But in the ancient era, Olympia was renowned for far more than its athletic contests. Read More
Interview Shannon Lee Dawdy on American Afterlives October 25, 2021 Death in the United States is undergoing a quiet revolution. You can have your body frozen, dissected, composted, dissolved, or tanned. Read More
