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Black and white headshot of author Livia Gershon

Livia Gershon

Livia Gershon is a freelance writer in Nashua, New Hampshire. Her writing has appeared in publications including Salon, Aeon Magazine and the Good Men Project. Contact her on Twitter @liviagershon.

12th September 1953: John Kennedy (1917 -1963) and Jacqueline Bouvier (1929 - 1994) pose with their ushers and maids of honor on their wedding day,

The Literal Magic of the Kennedys

Americans have long viewed the Kennedy family as a kind of magical royalty associated with occult notions and conspiracies.
Pliny the Elder

The Numinous World of Pliny the Elder

As a follower of Stoic philosophy, Pliny used sensory experience to try to understand the divine.
The Fire of Rome, 18 July 64 AD by Hubert Robert , 1785

A History of Fire

It’s only as we brought fire under better control that we stopped thinking so much about it—and, with climate change, that may be shifting again.
Mary Kay Baum shares photos and drawings with children at the Tres Cabelas cooperative school, 1986

Fighting for El Salvador, from Wisconsin

In the 1980s, people from across the US used civil programs and other direct connections with Salvadorans to build opposition to El Salvador’s oligarchy.
Sultan Bayezit II

Creating an Ottoman Political Culture

As the Ottoman Empire became a world power in the fifteenth century, it also became a center of culture, producing original political literature and philosophy.
A photograph of a red pill in someone's left palm and a blue pill in his right palm

An Age of Fantasy Politics

Tropes from science fiction and fantasy have become fodder for political rhetoric and action on all sides in the twenty-first century.
A couple gazes over the Nile River on Valentine's Day, February 14, 2011 in Cairo, Egypt.

Valentine’s Day in Egypt

In recent decades, celebrations of Valentine’s Day have become common in Egypt. But, as anthropologist Aymon Kreil found, opinions on the holiday are mixed.
Vintage American History print of President George Washington and President Abraham Lincoln shaking hands

Praising Washington in Lincoln’s Day

At the time of the Civil War, many Americans revered the nation’s Founding Fathers, and both supporters and opponents of slavery recruited them to their sides.
The cover of The Marking of the English Working Class by EP Thompson

E. P. Thompson and the American Working Class

Published in 1963, Thompson’s influential The Making of the English Working Class quickly led to questions about the nature of the American working class.
Bag of Money with Coins and Bills

How Progressives Legalized Usury

In the early twentieth century, reformers united with capitalists to promote high-interest lending, overthrowing opposition to usury rooted in Christian tradition.

What “Pain” Means

The English word “pain” once meant punishment, but over time, it’s been used to refer to different kinds of unpleasant experiences.
An illustration from the masthead of The Catholic Worker

Catholics Against Racism

As early as the 1930s, Black Catholic parishioners formed alliances with their white counterparts to put their churches in service of anti-racist goals.
Twin Cities Pride, 2011

How Minnesota Became a Queer Hmong Mecca

Despite policies meant to scatter immigrants from the same ethnic group across the United States, the Twin Cities area became a refuge for LGBTQ Hmongs.
Ettore Petrolini

Laughing With the Fascists

Mussolini’s regime isn’t generally associated with a sense of humor, but the Fascist party found comedy useful in certain circumstances.
Cover of The Culture Arts Review also known as 文华 Wén huá, 1929

Industrial Policy via Women’s Magazines

In the early 1900s, women’s magazines helped both women and men grapple with China’s fast-changing world of technology and industrial activity.
Source: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Façade-van-het-Dogepaleis-te-Venetië--bf66995c5e586e6e743e81f058f33dfa

Venice, the Walkable Sixteenth-Century City

In early modern Venice, walking was the most convenient mode of transportation for almost everyone. It was also a symbol of strength and nobility for elites.
A priest holds a christening for a baby of Tibetan ethnic minority group attends a mass at a church of Cizhong Village on December 25, 2006 in Deqin County of Yunnan Province, China

A Tibetan Christmas

The story of Cizhong’s Catholic holiday festival began when French missionaries arrived in northwest Yunnan with plans to spread their faith across Tibet.
The Feast of the Gods, 1514/1529 by Giovanni Bellini

Mining for European Art

Advances in painting in early modern Europe were the product not just of artistic innovation but of changes in mining and manufacturing technology.
The first meeting between Montezuma II and Hernando Cortez in Mexico City, 1519

Was the Story of Cortés Plagiarized from Arabic?

The mythic stories of the Spanish conquest of Mexico seem to have been largely taken from earlier tales of the Muslim conquest of southern Spain.
Pleurants (Weepers), unknown artist, ca. 1295

Theologies of Emotion in Medieval Europe

The framework used by theologians to understand emotions changed in the Middle Ages, thanks in part to new translations of Arabic texts.
Site of the September 17, 1963 bus and freight train collision near Chualar, California, which killed 32 Mexican migrant farmworkers

The Tragedy that Transformed the Chicano Movement

In 1963, more than thirty Mexican guest workers died in a terrible accident in California. The fallout helped turn farmworkers’ rights into a national cause.
A wild turkey

The Great American Turkey

The turkey was semi-domesticated and kept in pens in the American Southwest some 2,000 years ago—but not for the reason you think.
Saint Jean de Brebeuf Confronts the Huron Indian Council

Making Scents of Jesuit Missionary Work

The use of sensory stimulants like incense gave Jesuits a common framework with the North American nations they encountered on missionary trips.
Posters urging people to report sex trafficking are seen at a metromover rail stop on November 06, 2019 in Miami, Florida.

The Anti-Sex-Trafficking Vigilantes Next Door

A fear of rampant sex-trafficking in American cities sparked a new wave of civilian vigilante activity in the early twenty-first century. 
IBM Model 72 Kana Selectric Typewriter

How IBM Took Europe

After World War II, IBM worked to influence the new balance of power by locating facilities for the production of its electric typewriter across Europe.