The Art of Digital Addiction
Digital addiction is inspiring plays, books, films, and art -- just as other forms of addiction have in the past.
Subscription Art for the 19th-Century Set
How the American Art-Union brought fine art to the people, via a subscription service, in the 1840s.
The Dubious Art of the Dad Joke
Is it really only dads who can tell dad jokes? And is this corny humor universal? Our linguist takes a deep dive.
![Design 513, Damask, 1956 and Design 104, Printed Silk and Fortisan Casement [curtain fabric], 1955, by Frank Lloyd Wright](https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2097/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/frank_lloyd_wrights_fraught_attempt_at_mass_production_1050x700-600x400.jpg)
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fraught Attempt at Mass Production
The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright famously loathed commercialism, and yet he (reluctantly) designed commercial homewares to be mass produced.
William Blake, Radical Abolitionist
Blake’s works offer an alternative to the failures of the Enlightenment, which couldn’t muster a consistent argument for abolition.
A Feminist Vision of the Musical
Chantal Akerman’s The Eighties proves that a musical set in a mall can be a significant feminist work.
Walt Whitman, America’s Phrenologist
The pseudoscience of phrenology included a notion of body as text that Whitman loved. But the craze of "bumpology" also had a darker side.
The Life of Forgotten Poet Letitia Elizabeth Landon
She was known as the "female Byron." So why doesn't anyone read L.E.L. anymore?
Frank Capra’s Not-So-Sunny Vision of American Life
Capra's films are known for being upbeat and sometimes cheesy, but beneath the surface are rather dark stories of American corruption.