Kinship and Contradictions

Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz on the complexities of Native American identity

Overconsumed

Adam Minter on what happens to all the stuff we downsize, declutter, and discard

Fiction, Fakery, and Factory Farming

Spanish novelist Munir Hachemi talks about Living Things

American Horror Story

Jeremy Dauber on our obsession with fear

The Writing on the Wall

Augustine Sedgewick on his discovery of Henry David Thoreau’s connection to slavery

This Woman’s Work

Susannah Gibson opens the parlor doors on 18th-century feminism

Queen of the Night

Leigh Ann Henion embraces the creatures that light up the dark

A Toothsome Tale

Bill Schutt chomps through millennia to share the story of our pearly whites

A Rebel to Remember

Gregory P. Downs on the late Anthony E. Kaye’s groundbreaking history of Nat Turner

Going for Gold

Joshua Prager on a forgotten Olympic gymnast whose 1904 record still hasn’t been beaten

A Delicate Elephant Balance

Could human partnership be the secret to saving this Asian giant?

You Never Step Into the Same Internet Twice

Linguist Gretchen McCulloch on the new rules of language

Aida’s Story

What one woman’s life between two countries can teach us about the humanitarian crisis at the border

How a Language Dies

Chronicling the disappearance of a remote Papua New Guinean tongue—and everything else that goes with it

Crimes Against Sexuality

How true crime stories were used to fan the flames of homophobia—and let killers get away with murder

Illustration of a vintage blue car against a yellow background

Stick Shifts and Safety Belts

How car culture swallowed America

The Wine-Merchant’s Son’s Tale

The first biography of Geoffrey Chaucer in a generation explores the places that inspired the English poet

Meat Made

How 19th-century beef created modern America

The Space Between Our Ears

How movement, gesture, and spatial reasoning form the foundation of thoughts

A stylized pink-and-white cat toy waves hello

Totes Adorbs

A philosopher digs into the subversive meaning of “cuteness”

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