Essay Multitasking and the pandemic parent August 24, 2020 From my third floor attic office, I can hear my wife鈥檚 muffled voice through the door to the room just off the stairs. I can鈥檛 hear what she is saying, but from its now familiar cadence, I can tell that she is in a meeting. We used to post signs when we were in meetings, but we don鈥檛 bother anymore. Read More
Interview By Design | Porcelain: A History from the Heart of Europe August 24, 2020 Porcelain, once dubbed 鈥渨hite gold鈥� after being reproduced by an eighteenth-century Saxon alchemist, may seem to us today like a quaint rarity, a beautiful relic confined to elegant china cabinets. But in Suzanne Marchand鈥檚 absorbing history, this translucent ceramic comes to life as a once-ubiquitous commodity linked to geopolitical upheaval and the global transformations of the last three centuries. Read More
Essay Skills for Scholars: The new tools of the trade August 18, 2020 Any discussion of scholarly tools at 91桃色 naturally begins with a reverent nod to the printing press鈥攆or obvious reasons but also in subtler ways. Since 1911, the Press鈥檚 headquarters have been housed in a timeless Collegiate Gothic building (later named for benefactor Charles Scribner), designed by Ernest Flagg and sitting at the edge of 91桃色鈥檚 campus. Read More
Essay Wenfei Tong on Bird Love August 11, 2020 Bonds of affection can take as many forms for birds as they do for humans, and common evolutionary themes explain many ways birds, like humans, experience and demonstrate 鈥渓ove.鈥� Read More
Interview Robert Inman and Daniel Rubinfeld on Democratic Federalism August 06, 2020 Around the world, federalism has emerged as the system of choice for nascent republics and established nations alike. In this book, leading scholars and governmental advisers Robert Inman and Daniel Rubinfeld consider the most promising forms of federal governance and the most effective path to enacting federal policies. Read More
Essay Reconsidering ethical costs in a pandemic August 03, 2020 As the reality of the pandemic set in, faculty, students, and administrators scrambled to adjust to the sudden switch to online teaching.聽I learned to navigate Zoom with a toddler at home and my students packed up their dorms and prepared to finish their coursework elsewhere. Read More
Essay What is Jewish hope? July 31, 2020 How, in a global pandemic, can we look forward to the future with hope? The economic and political landscape that COVID-19 will leave in its wake is alarmingly uncertain. Read More
Essay A paean to the paperback July 30, 2020 My passion for paperbacks began back in the year 2000 with my first job in book publishing. Prior to that, as a philosophy graduate student, I was enamored of finding hardback editions, ideally jacketed, of the philosophers whose works I was reading. Read More
Essay Forgiveness works: What can we learn from a victim鈥慶entered justice system July 27, 2020 As many of us march in the streets or watch televised protests, we are forced to acknowledge the brutalities of our punitive justice system all across the United States. Read More
Essay A look inside Just Giving July 24, 2020 鈥淵our fortune is rolling up, rolling up like an avalanche! You must keep up with it! You must distribute it faster than it grows! If you do not, it will crush you, and your children, and your children鈥檚 children!鈥� So wrote Frederick Gates to sixty-seven-year-old John D. Rockefeller in 1906. Read More
Interview By Design | Karen Siatras on designing for Humboldt July 20, 2020 Karen Siatras is a graphic designer in SAAM鈥檚 Publications office. For her most recent project, the massive exhibition catalogue that accompanies聽Alexander von Humboldt and the United States: Art, Nature, and Culture, she created special decorative letters at the start of each chapter in the book. Read More
Essay A highland roadside: Verge and woodland July 17, 2020 Even better than a shady bank scattered with the fresh June fronds of Beech Fern Phegopteris connectilis interwoven with bluebells, stitchwort, red campion and spikes of Wood Horsetail Equisetum sylvaticum is a roadside verge with thousands of Beech Fern fronds, stretching as far ahead as you can see and spilling down the bank into the woodland alongside. Read More
Interview Eva Rosen on The Voucher Promise July 15, 2020 Housing vouchers are a cornerstone of聽US聽federal housing policy, offering aid to more than two million households. Vouchers are meant to provide the poor with increased choice in the private rental marketplace, enabling access to safe neighborhoods with good schools and higher-paying jobs. But do they? Read More
Essay The Black man at Lincoln鈥檚 feet: Archer Alexander and the problem of emancipation July 13, 2020 The Emancipation Memorial sits imprisoned in a cage in Washington鈥檚 Lincoln Park, waiting to hear whether it will be exiled or set free. The fate of its replica in Boston is also hanging in the balance, as a petition for its removal has been signed by thousands. Read More
Essay Promised Words July 10, 2020 In the early morning, before my 2-year-old and 7-year-old wake up, I sneak down the creaky stairs, swinging slightly on the bannisters to keep my weight from announcing my descent. My younger child seems to have impossibly sensitive hearing, and so I crunch my granola on the couch as quietly as possible, while I begin work-related email and reading. Read More
