The Cast of Dave Malloy’s Octet. Photo by Joan Marcus

The Art of Digital Addiction

Digital addiction is inspiring plays, books, films, and art -- just as other forms of addiction have in the past.
The Indian's Vespers by Asher Brown Durand, 1847

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.
A dad laughing at his own joke.

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

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.
Portrait of William Blake, 1807

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 film still from The Eighties by Chantal Akerman

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.
Phrenology head from The Household Physician, 1905

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.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon

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?
George Orwell

Think Again

Rereading W. H. Auden, George Orwell, and James Baldwin in times of crisis.
Frank Capra, 1937

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.