essays

For scientists, these are times both exciting and apprehensive. From designer babies to genomic medicine, artificial intelligence, and molecular surveillance, science is arguably the most dominant force defining our future.But even as they eagerly claim the mantle of...

Cybernetic signs and symbols have increasingly become a magnetizing spectacle in contemporary culture. The cyborg as a hybrid of human and machine in high fashion runway shows of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and the ways in which it engages with identity,...

“Nydia, the Blind Flower Girl of Pompeii” is a marble sculpture designed by Randolph Rogers [1825–1892], and reproduced in two sizes for 167 copies. “Nydia” portrays how narratives can inspire art and, in turn, how art can function as a communicative medium that...

Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC – 8 BC), known to the anglophone world as Horace, was a Roman lyric poet. Published between 23 BC and 13 BC, his Odes are a collection of praise songs, adapted principally from earlier Greek lyrics, on diverse subjects. In Horace, The...

Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, a tragedy likely written in late 1593 and set in ancient Rome, is a meditation on early modern race relations that still resonates today. The play follows a white, Roman family, the clan of Andronici, in their quest for vengeance...

As a historian, and as a person interested in most narratives of the past, I realize the unique value of Ancestry.com as a research tool in my own work. But, I realize now that I have to make a distinction between the value of Ancestry.com as a resource that helps me...

“Rock and Roll Never Dies!” From buskers on La Via del Corso to Eurovision winners, Måneskin shows what it means to earn a growing global platform and use it wellThis year’s Eurovision Song Contest saw major changes from past competitions. Sure, the stadium was...

I love the supermarket — fiercely, obsessively, weirdly. I go to the supermarket when I feel overwhelmed. And it turns out I’m not alone. I used to hang out at my local grocery store every day and see hundreds of other people stopping in for lunch at the hot bar, or...

 It’s a truism for Octavia Butler fans: the postapocalyptic California landscape of her landmark Parable of the Sower (1993) is nearly indistinguishable from contemporary reality. In the novel, Butler’s teenage protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina, navigates a...

The 2020s have arrived, bringing sensational headlines on the state of the global economy that anticipate “another Roaring Twenties” or condemn the comparison as “absurd.”  What these headlines miss, and often obscure, is the reality of political turmoil and economic...

Even in the best of times, graduate students occupy a precarious position in higher education. But with many universities failing to offer clear directives for what instruction will look like for the upcoming fall semester, the struggles graduate students face are...

 Growing up in the capital city of Guwahati, Assam, life was marked by recurring floods and occasional violence, shaping a unique resilience in middle-class girls like us. We were taught two critical lessons with utmost seriousness: never to venture out...