Cannibalism gave imperial powers compelling justifications for their colonial endeavors; indigenous Americans and Australasians were backward, uncivilized, savage, and ritual cannibalism served as proof of their need for a guiding hand. But it’s not that easy. Why? Because right at the moment when Europeans were using cannibalism to demean indigenous Read more
When the Spanish conquered Mesoamerica, they conquered cacao. Mixing the bitter cacao seeds with sugar and other spices – spices that were often also obtained through European conquest – the Spanish created a commodity that stimulated the European comestible market. Its luxuriousness grew first out of its expensiveness and rarity Read more
To escape what came to be known as The Year Without a Summer, a small group holed up in a Swiss villa and challenged each other to pass the time by telling the best ghost stories. Several notable literary works emerged from this friendly storytelling competition. Lord Byron’s poem Darkness, Read more
Shannon Withycombe’s Lost: Miscarriage in Nineteenth-Century America puts miscarriage at the center of the study of nineteenth-century science, medicine, and women’s experience with their reproductive bodies. You may be surprised by the range of responses to pregnancy loss, motherhood, and reproduction in the 19th century. Listen, download, watch on YouTube, Read more
This Halloween, take a minute to notice amputated limbs littering haunted houses, scary stories about reanimated corpses that you tell by the fire while you’re camping, all that rubbernecking on the thruway when there’s a horrific accident, the endless tv shows, podcasts, and books dedicated to grisly murders… or even Read more
Marissa and Sarah discuss Georgians’ and Victorians’ love affair with Tuberculosis and the tuberculean aesthetic in fashion and art. In Georgian London, some diseases started to seem fashionable, desirable even. Gambling was popular, elites were using snuff and drinking spirits, powdering their hair, whitening their faces with toxic creams, damaging Read more