Essay The world of John McPhee May 14, 2025 When I set out to find the whole world of John McPhee, to document and explore his extraordinary career as a writer, I had no sense of the fascinating marathon of research ahead. Read More
Interview Hope Harvey on Doubled Up May 14, 2025 More than fifteen percent of US children—over eleven million—live in doubled-up households, sharing space with extended family or friends. Read More
Interview John Tolan on Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present May 13, 2025 Most popular histories of Islam continue to repeat conventional pietistic accounts. In contrast, John Tolan draws on decades of new historical research that has transformed knowledge of the origins and development of the Muslim faith. Read More
Podcast Memory Lane May 09, 2025 Memory Lane introduces readers to the cutting-edge science of human memory, revealing how our recollections of the past are constantly adapting and changing, and why a faulty memory isn’t always a bad thing. Read More
Interview Irene Vega on Bordering on Indifference May 09, 2025 In her new book, Bordering on Indifference, Irene Vega tells the story of how U.S. Border Patrol Agents and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Officers come into the work, how they are trained and socialized once on the job, and how that training and socialization impacts the way they reconcile its many moral and racial tensions. Read More
Interview Vali Nasr on Iran’s Grand Strategy May 07, 2025 Vali Nasr examines Iran’s political history in new ways to explain its actions and ambitions on the world stage, showing how, behind the veneer of theocracy and Islamic ideology, today’s Iran is pursuing a grand strategy aimed at securing the country internally and asserting its place in the region and the world. Read More
Reading List Books for advancing the humanities and affirming our shared humanity May 06, 2025 According to the recent World Humanities Report, the humanities are threatened for the very reasons they are powerful. Literature, the arts, philosophy, aesthetics, history: these disciplines—once considered vital to understanding what it means to be human—remain crucial in providing frameworks for understanding human experience, fostering ethical reasoning, countering authoritarianism, and addressing societal problems. Read More
Essay Lars Krutak on Indigenous Tattoo Traditions May 05, 2025 Transporting readers through history, anthropologist Lars Krutak explores the art and customs of tattooing across numerous ancestral lands, including Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, the Arctic, Oceania, Japan, Southeast Asia, and Siberia. Read More
Podcast Steadfast Democrats, Five Years Later May 01, 2025 An innovative explanation for why Black Americans continue in political lockstep, Steadfast Democrats sheds light on the motivations consolidating an influential portion of the American electoral population. Read More
Reading List Books for finding balance May 01, 2025 Research shows conclusively that overwork can be harmful to employees and humans at large, and yet it can be hard to find public examples of choices that support true balance, or guidance that puts health ahead of hustle. Read More
Video Jaap de Roode on the medical wonders of the animal world April 30, 2025 In this series of videos, Jaap de Roode?introduces "Doctors by Nature" and answers questions about animal healing. Read More
Podcast Leonardo da Vinci: An Untraceable Life April 30, 2025 Stephen J. Campbell examines the strangeness of Leonardo’s words and works, and the distinctive premodern world of artisans and thinkers from which he emerged. Far from being a solitary genius living ahead of his time, Leonardo inhabited a vibrant network of artistic, technological, and literary exchange. Read More
Essay Personal advice columns, then and now April 30, 2025 Mary Beth Norton's research into "The Athenian Mercury" reveals what has changed—and stayed the same—over the long history of advice columns. Read More
Essay Why linguistic diversity matters April 29, 2025 Over 7,000 languages are spoken today, but nearly half could vanish by the end of the century. Read More
Video PUP Speaks: R. Jisung Park on the hidden health impacts of wildfires April 29, 2025 It’s hard not to feel anxious about the problem of climate change, especially if we think of it as an impending planetary catastrophe. R. Jisung Park encourages us to view climate change through a different lens. Read More
