Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States, and its residents are considered United States citizens. However the island’s political status remains a subject of debate and discussion. Some Puerto Ricans advocate for independence, while others support maintaining the current status as a territory, pursuing statehood, or seeking other Read more…
The dominant narrative- and the story that many of you expect to hear today- is that fatness used to be less stigmatized; that plump women were beautiful and plump men regarded as wealthy and important but that somewhere along the way, thinness became associated with beauty and fatness became medicalized Read more…
Written and spoken language are separate things. Languages that are connected to a written script change more slowly and last longer than those that don’t. Writing acts as an anchor to humans’ ever-changing speech sounds. But these two aspects of language (speech and writing) did not always go hand in Read more…
Roger Casement has been a subject of fascination – and controversy – for over a century. During his lifetime, he was an internationally-recognized champion for human rights, and was instrumental in exposing the horrors surrounding the rubber industry in the Belgian Congo and Peruvian Putumayo. Significantly, he spent his life Read more…
There was a sense, among very learned folks, that Rome had been something great that had been lost. In their grief, Renaissance scholars pored over classical manuscripts, attempting to build a picture of Rome’s greatness and, perhaps, find a reason for its disintegration. Rome’s fall was bemoaned, even resented by Read more…
Transcript: “For King, Country, and… Opium?: Thinking About Causality, Empire, and Historiography in the First Opium War, 1839-1842“ Researched and written by Averill Earls, PhD Recorded by Averill Earls and Marissa C. Rhodes, PhD Averill: According to the website of Britain’s National Army Museum, the first Opium War started when, Read more…
Swear words shock and offend. They also have a physiological impact on us: we blush, our heart races, and our brain is stimulated. The words that have this power vary over time and space. The history of swear words really drives home the idea that the past is a foreign Read more…
On December 16th, 1929, thousands of Igbo women gathered outside the colonial government compound in Opobo. They were there to demand the end of British imperialism in Eastern Nigeria, though the British seemed oblivious to the intention and motivations of these women. What they saw were erratic, reactive women wielding Read more…
Tea, it turns out, is a bottomless commodity history. As historian Erika Rappaport notes, at various times over the last two thousand years, “In Asia, the Near East, Europe, and North America, tea was a powerful medicine, a dangerous drug, a religious and artistic practice, a status symbol, an aspect Read more…
Elizabeth: It’s 1926 and you’re in a mine cage, a type of elevator contraption that slowly descends down the shaft of a coal mine. The air gets colder and colder as the light disappears from above and you are plunged into darkness, lit only by a single dim bulb attached Read more…