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Tintype photograph of Omar Ibn Said.

Educated and Enslaved

The journey of Omar Ibn Said.

A Universe of One’s Own

Only in the science fiction genre can one compare an alien to a woman.

A Lost Work by Langston Hughes Examines the Harsh Life on the Chain Gang

In 1933, the Harlem Renaissance star wrote a powerful essay about race. It has never been published in English—until now.
Rudyard Kipling

Rudyard Kipling in America

What happened to the great defender of Empire when he settled in the States?
Glowing white "No" against a red background.

“Perhaps We’re Being Dense.” Rejection Letters Sent to Famous Writers

Some kind, some weird, some unbelievably harsh.

Against the Great Man Theory of Historians

Without accounting for the often-invisible work of others in his research, Robert Caro's new memoir is not so much inspiration as an exercise in self-celebration.

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll

From Bob Dylan to David Bowie to The Beatles, the legendary Beat writer’s influence reached beyond literature into music in surprising ways.

A Strange Blight: Rachel Carson’s Forebodings

Reading Silent Spring today, in the hazy reddish glow of climate catastrophe, is both an exhilarating and a melancholy pleasure.
Drawing of a woman being blown away holding a kite made of books

Margaret Fuller on the Social Value of Intellectual Labor and Why Artists Ought to Be Paid

“The circulating medium… is abused like all good things, but without it you would not have had your Horace and Virgil.”

On Robert Caro, Great Men, and the Problem of Powerful Women in Biography

Power and ambition in women are often hidden, buried, disguised, crushed, mocked, diminished, punished, or excoriated.

How John Hersey Revealed the Horrors of the Atomic Bomb to the US

Remembering "Hiroshima," the story that changed everything.
Neo-Nazis hold flags during a National Socialist Movement rally at Greenville Street Park in Newnan, Georgia, on April 21, 2018.

On the Rise of “White Power”

The author of a book on paramilitary white supremacy discusses the methods and ethics of researching racial violence.
Lincoln portrait superimposed on rainbow flag

So What if Lincoln Was Gay?

Reflections from the author of a novel that does not shy away from the question of Lincoln's sexuality.

A Book of Necessary, Speculative Narratives for the Anonymous Black Women of History

Unearthing the beauty in the wayward, the fiction in the facts, and the thriving existence in the face of a blanked out history.

Oklahoma Was Never Really O.K.

A new production exposes the darkness that’s always been at the heart of the musical — and the American experiment.
Rod Serling at the typewriter, at his Westport, Connecticut, home in 1956.

An Early Run-In With Censors Led Rod Serling to 'The Twilight Zone'

His failed attempts to bring the Emmett Till tragedy to television forced him to get creative.

'Reality Bites' Captured Gen X With Perfect Irony

The 1994 studio film was written by a 20-something who mined her own life to tell the story of a generation that disdained 'selling out.'
Erica Armstrong Dunbar and Tiya Miles.

Talk of Souls in Slavery Studies

The co-winners of the 2018 Frederick Douglass Book Prize on researching slavery.
Portrait of Jim Nicholson.

Jim Nicholson, Champion of the Common-Man Obituary, Dies at 76

“Who would you miss more when he goes on vacation,” Nicholson liked to ask, “the secretary of state or your garbage man?”

“My Dear Master”: An Enslaved Blacksmith’s Letters to a President

This document is the rarest of items in the Library of Congress's manuscript collections: a letter written by an enslaved person.

The Secrets of Lyndon Johnson's Archives

On a presidential paper trail.
Sylvia Plath smiling outdoors.

What We Don’t Know About Sylvia Plath

On revelations from a chance graveside encounter.

The Vanishing Indians of “These Truths”

Jill Lepore's widely-praised history of the U.S. relies on the eventual exit of indigenous actors to make way for other dramas.

Best American History Reads of 2018

Bunk's editor shares some of his favorite pieces from the year.
Political cartoon lampooning Thomas Paine and his beliefs

America and Other Fictions: On Radical Faith and Post-Religion

Thomas Paine, the most radical of American revolutionaries, perhaps most fully understood the millennial potential of the new Republic.

The Surprisingly Sad True Story Behind 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer'

Copywriter Robert L. May dreamed up Rudolph during a particularly difficult time in his life.

Literary Hoaxes and the Ethics of Authorship

What happens when we find out writers aren't who they said they were.
Portrait of Emily Dickinson next to a portrait of Susan Gilbert

Emily Dickinson’s Electric Love Letters to Susan Gilbert

“Come with me this morning to the church within our hearts, where the bells are always ringing, and the preacher whose name is Love — shall intercede for us!”
Still from the Golden Girls.

Deconstructing HIV and AIDS on The Golden Girls

In 1990, one of America's most beloved sitcoms took on the HIV epidemic with humor and sensitivity.
Stack of biographies.

Arguing Biography

An university press editor considers the merits and limitations of biography as a scholarly form.

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