Jubilee Singers of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, early 1870s. Photograph by James Wallace Black for the American Missionary Association. Library of Congress. The fourth track on Bob Dylan’s...
When is interruption an art form? Short answer: the eighteenth-century novel. Interrupting another speaker gets a bad rap: common charges lodged against listeners who jump the queue maintain that interrupters...
Everyone who discovers a new species nowadays has the right to name it. This name has to conform to rather intricate rules established by international professional associations. These conventions can...
Other than Paul, no writer has had greater influence on the theology of justification than Augustine. In the preface to his Latin works, Martin Luther famously narrated his discovery of the justifying...
Though associated with nighttime dance parties and clubs, electronic dance music has saturated many aspects of contemporary culture. We hear it in adverts and shops. Even some restaurants employ a DJ...
This book brings together two vibrant academic discourses that have rarely interacted beforehand: religious epistemology and comparative hagiography. Inspired by Austin Farrer’s provocative claim that...
Nashville is often associated with music; it is home to the Grand Ole Opry and claims to have the most recording studios of any American city. But its most iconic building may be a full-scale replica...
At the turn of the century, Charles Kingson, a respected academic, tax practitioner, and government official, observed that in the old days people sold you clothes face to face in downtown department...
In the last few decades, archaeology has undergone a technological revolution. From high-resolution LiDAR to advanced radiocarbon dating and ancient DNA analysis, our “toolbox” has never been...
In Thomas Johnson’s updated 1636 edition of John Gerard’s The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes, there is an image comparing the ‘true’ and ‘feigned’ figures of ginger. Johnson explains...
We all use language every day: not only to communicate thoughts and ideas to other people, but also for our internal monologue and, some might argue, for organizing thought. But what are the inner workings...
If the last year of geopolitical upheaval has taught us anything, it is that the international order is far more fragile than we cared to imagine. When established alliances like NATO fracture under the...