Imaginary Worlds: Body Horror Gets Under My Skin
We all have that one thing we just can’t watch. For me, it’s body horror -- the kind of horror where grotesque and disturbing things happen to someone’s body, like…
Surprising facts about Mark Twain that biographer Ron Chernow learned while writing new book
Best-selling author Ron Chernow's list of works has revealed details of historical titans easily identified by surnames -- Grant, Washington, Rockefeller. He even inspired the hit broadway musical "Hamilton." Chernow joins…
Sarah E. Bond on Ancient Art, Wages, and Strikes: A 3000-Year-Old History of Labor
At Hyperallergic, we take pride in covering protesting museum workers who take to the streets. But few realize that these workers are taking part in a practice that’s as old…
Bird’s-Eye View
Jennifer Ackerman on How Birds Adapt, Survive, and Think By Mark Leviton
Come Together
A conversation with Sarah Schulman about solidarity and a life spent writing and fighting The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity BY Sarah Schulman. New York: Thesis. 320 pages. $30. WHEN…
Griffin Dunne on a literary family’s legacy
He grew up in Hollywood in a well-known literary family, and built a career as an actor, producer, director and documentary filmmaker. Now, Griffin Dunne has written a family memoir…
David Macaulay, America’s “Explainer-in-chief”
Author David Macaulay has spent more than 50 years finding ways to explain things, via his humorous and intricately illustrated books featuring wooly mammoth guides – his attempt to hook…
Why Africa’s history is more than just the slave trade
Has our focus on the impact of the transatlantic slave trade blinded us to the diversity and complexity of Africa's past? That's one of the arguments at the heart of…
Written in the Waters
Tara Roberts
How the compass became a political weapon
Why did early Islamic cartographers place south at the top of their maps? Who invented the magnetic compass? And why has 'the west' become an intensely political term, as well…