The Boundaries of Ancient Trade

The Boundaries of Ancient Trade

Drawing on rich ethnographic data as well as archaeological evidence, “The Boundaries of Ancient Trade,” by archaeologist Helina Woldekiros in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, challenges long-standing conceptions of highly centralized sociopolitical and economic organization and trade along the Afar salt trail: one of the last economically significant caravan-based trade routes in the world.
A Moment in the Sun

A Moment in the Sun

Robert Ernest was an architect of rare promise and remarkable early success, whose award-winning career was cut short by cancer at age 28 in 1962. Despite the brevity of Ernest’s life, his education and practice were intertwined with some of the most important figures in architecture, including his interactions with Louis I. Kahn and Paul Rudolph.
The Opening of the Protestant Mind

The Opening of the Protestant Mind

During the mid-17th century, Anglo-American Protestants described Native American ceremonies as savage devilry, Islamic teaching as violent chicanery, and Catholicism as repugnant superstition. By the mid-18th century, they described amicable debates with Algonquian religious leaders, conversations with Muslim scholars, and encounters with priests in Catholic Canada and Europe. What explains this poignant shift?
A Film in Which I Play Everyone

A Film in Which I Play Everyone

“A Film in Which I Play Everyone” takes its title from a response David Bowie gave to a fan who asked if he had upcoming film roles. “I’m looking for backing for an unauthorized autobiography that I am writing,” Bowie answered. “Hopefully, this will sell in such huge numbers that I will be able to sue myself for an extraordinary amount of money and finance the film version in which I will play everybody.”
Black Networked Resistance

Black Networked Resistance

Through case studies and interviews, Raven Maragh-Lloyd reveals the malleable ways resistance can take shape and the ways Black users artfully demonstrate such modifications of resistance through strategies of survival, reprieve, and community online.

Disenchanting the Caliphate

The political thought of Muslim societies is all too often defined in religious terms, in which the writings of clerics are seen as representative and ideas about governance are treated as an extension of commentary on sacred texts. “Disenchanting the Caliphate” offers a groundbreaking new account of political discourse in Islamic history by examining Abbasid imperial practice, illuminating the emergence and influence of a vibrant secular tradition.

Adventure

What is the meaning of “adventure” as we enter the third decade of the 21st century, after a global pandemic, social and geopolitical calamities, and accelerating environmental catastrophes? What stories are humans telling about wilderness, remote destinations, and the most difficult thoughts thinkable? 
Shelf Life

Shelf Life

Shelf Life is a Jewish–American family saga about the rise of its fashion retailing empire and how it splits and ultimately devastates the family. As the son of Max Feldman, the self-proclaimed “sodbuster from Omaha” and brilliant founder of the successful fashion shoe store chain Fratelli Massimo, Josh Feldman has always known his destiny . […]

Inside the Competitor’s Mindset

When it comes to competitive strategy, knowing what your competition is doing is good; understanding why they do what they do and predicting what they are going to do next is best.
View More Stories