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19th caricature of a dentist extracting a tooth

Sicko Doctors: Suffering and Sadism in 19th-Century America

American fiction of the 19th century often featured a cruel doctor, whose unfeeling fascination with bodily suffering readers found unnerving.
Flannery O'Connor standing outside at her Georgia home.

How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?

She has become an icon of American letters. Now readers are reckoning with another side of her legacy.
Graffito picture of Richard Nixon superimposed on lines an German text.

Richard Nixon, Modular Man

Even knowing every awful thing Richard Nixon would go on to do, you had to respect, as the phrase goes, his hustle.
Photographs of Lilian Smith and Frank Yerby.

Frank Yerby and Lillian Smith: Challenging the Myths of Whiteness

Both Southerners. Both all but forgotten. Both, in their own ways, questioned the social constructions of race and white supremacy in their writings.

The History of O. Henry's 'The Gift of the Magi'

The beloved Christmas short story may have been dashed off on deadline but its core message has endured.

Historical Fanfiction as Affective History Making

How online fandoms are allowing people to find themselves in the narrative.

The Question Without a Solution

The horrors of the fugitive slave laws, the costs of union, and the value of comity.
Section of "A Whaling Voyage 'Round The World," depicting three ships, with whales and sailors in rowboats in the water

Did North America's Longest Painting Inspire Moby-Dick?

Herman Melville likely saw the panorama “Whaling Voyage,” which records the sinking of the whaler Essex, while staying in Boston in 1849.
Anti-lynching protest outside White House

We See You, Race Women

We must dive deeper into the intellectual artifacts of black women thinkers to support the evolution of black feminist discourse and political action.

The Notorious Book that Ties the Right to the Far Right

The enduring popularity of "The Camp of the Saints" sheds light on nativists' historical opposition to immigration.

How the KKK Shaped Modern Comic Book Superheroes

Masked men who take the law into their own hands.
Picture of a suburban neighborhood.

The Suburban Horror of the Indian Burial Ground

In the 1970s and 1980s, homeowners were terrified by the idea that they didn't own the land they'd just bought.
A portrait of a woman in an crime pamphlet labeled "the beautiful victim."

The Bloody History of the True Crime Genre

True Crime is having a renaissance with popular TV series and podcasts. But the history of the genre dates back much further.
Book cover of Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Talents."

The Fictional Presidential Candidate Who Promised to ‘Make America Great Again’

How a work of science fiction anticipated the coming of Trump.

How Did YA Become YA?

Why is it called YA anyway? And who decided what was YA and what wasn’t?

The Self-Made Man

The story of America’s most pliable, pernicious, irrepressible myth.
Salmon fisheries at Celilo Falls.

Ken Kesey Meets Lewis and Clark

Celilo Falls was the economic and spiritual center of the Indian world in the Pacific Northwest.
A dairy farm near Charlottesville (Library of Congress).

'Charlottesville': A Government-Commissioned Story About Nuclear War

A fictional 1979 account of how the small Virginia city would weather an all-out nuclear exchange between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
Harper Lee

Harper Lee's Only Recorded Interview About 'To Kill A Mockingbird' [AUDIO]

In 1964, Harper Lee talked with WQXR host Roy Newquist for an interview in New York.

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