Re-Wild Your Child!
On Earth Day, one mom argues for “green time” over “screen time.”
Most Recent Articles
Suggested Readings: Dangerous Births, Air Strikes, and Depression
Well-researched stories from around the web that bridge the gap…
Netflix Is A Questionable Historian
Brazilian social media is in an uproar about a recent Netflix show that portrays Brazilian political corruption. Can film and TV ever get history right?
The Teachers’ Union Boomerang
Today’s teacher’s strikes in places like Oklahoma and West Virginia are the result of labor battles back in 2010, and the declining presence of unions across the economy generally.
The Same-Sex Household That Launched 3 Women Artists
The “Red Rose Girls”—Violet Oakley, Jessie Wilcox Smith, and Elizabeth Shippen Green—met at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in the 1880s.
Why We Still Love The Twilight Zone
Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone stood out in the “vast wasteland” of television in the early 1960s and still resonates today.
When Landscape Painting Was Protest Art
The landscape painter Thomas Cole celebrated the American landscape, but also expressed doubts about the limits of civilization.
Long Reads
The Restoration’s Filthiest Poet (and Why We Need Him)
Creature of the court, royalist and fop, dandy and dilettante, John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester, knew how to scandalize with verse.
What, Prithee, Is a Poetess?
The loss and recovery of a poetic genre shows how the canon of literary history treats women writers the moment they start to gain attention and approval.
The New Sameness of Leslie Jamison’s Addiction Memoir
Leslie Jamison’s The Recovering is self-aware about being the same old story, recalling the redemption narratives of Rousseau and St. Augustine.
Column: Lingua Obscura
Revisiting the Messy Language of the Second Amendment
The debate over the Second Amendment is not just about guns—it’s also about grammar.
The Murky Linguistics of Consent
In many #MeToo stories, crucial signals, verbal and non-verbal cues, are sent but not received. Why is that?
Small Poppy Syndrome: Why are Australians so Obsessed With Nicknaming Things?
What’s behind the Australian habit of nicknaming and abbreviating everything? Nicknames may just reveal how Australians see themselves and relate to each other.
Column: The Digital Voyage
Why Deleting Facebook isn’t the Answer to Data-Driven Targeting
We have to become smarter news and advertising consumers, and learn to resist the unceasing stream of slanted messages that come our way.
To Save Congress, Restore Local News
Since Donald Trump was elected, national news stories dominate our attention and our social media feeds—at the expense of local news.
What Parkland Tells us About Teens and Social Media
While America’s parents have been wringing their hands over online safety, kids have steadily taken to social media, smartphones, and other digitally-enabled technologies to seek and promote their physical safety.
