When Hamlet Starts Showing Up in Federal Court

Lawyers have long set a precedent for citing Shakespeare in trial. During these murky, divided days the Bard’s words may ring truer than e’er. 

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Jun 13, 2018
Length: 6 minutes (1,630 words)

Feminize Your Canon: Olivia Manning

The first in a new series at the Paris Review, featuring “underrated and underread” female authors. This one profiles British Novelist Olivia Manning (1908-1980), known best for her novel School for Love and for her Balkan and Levant trilogies. Manning’s books featured less likable women characters, who might have been better appreciated if they were introduced now. A contemporary of Iris Murdoch and Kingsley Amis, she was jealous of their greater fame.

Published: Jun 13, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,901 words)

NASA is Learning the Best Way to Grow Food in Space

Sarah Scoles on how learning to grow food in space is a critical milestone to furthering space exploration, because astronauts simply can’t haul all the food they’ll need to thrive during long absences from Earth.

Source: Popular Science
Published: Jun 6, 2018
Length: 11 minutes (2,951 words)

Dorothy Allison: Tender to the Bone

Amy Wright interviews novelist, activist, and feminist Dorothy Allison on class, how poverty can influence a life’s path, the definition of a working-class heroine, and the role of women writers in literature.

Author: Amy Wright
Published: May 18, 2018
Length: 21 minutes (5,311 words)

Inside Palmer Luckey’s Bid to Build a Border Wall

A company named Anduril Industries is testing a sophisticated digital wall, called Lattice, to prevent unauthorized crossings along the US-Mexico border. Instead of using a fence and barbed wire, Lattice uses cameras, virtual reality and radar. If the system works, Anduril hopes to become a major player in the defense industry. But are the politcal values of its co-founder, Palmer Luckey, reason for concern?

Source: Wired
Published: Jun 11, 2018
Length: 18 minutes (4,627 words)

What It’s Like to Be One of the Few Men Who Volunteer as Abortion Clinic Escorts

His job? To protect women from pro-life protesters.

Author: Merritt K
Source: MEL Magazine
Published: Jun 6, 2018
Length: 12 minutes (3,194 words)

Underpaid and Exhausted: The Human Cost of Your Kindle

At a recent awards ceremony, the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, said, “I’m very proud of our working conditions and very proud of the wages we pay”. So why do the temporary Chinese “dispatch workers” who make Amazon Kindles and smart speakers earn barely $2 an hour, have to ask permission to use the toilet, and receive standard hourly rates for overtime, in violation of Chinese labor law?

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jun 9, 2018
Length: 10 minutes (2,608 words)

Brain in a Bucket

A Dallas doctor’s cutting-edge technique to identify brain matter helped convict an alleged axe murderer. But where exactly did the doctor get the brains?

Source: D Magazine
Published: Jun 11, 2018
Length: 16 minutes (4,191 words)

Wrestling With My Father

In this personal essay, Brian Gresko considers the lingering consequences when the only touches between father and son are abusive ones.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jun 11, 2018
Length: 13 minutes (3,488 words)

The Lifespan of a Lie

Dramatizations, manipulations, lies ─ the famous Stanford Prison Experiment proved to be a highly influential psychological study, even though it was hardly scientific.

Author: Ben Blum
Source: Medium
Published: Jun 7, 2018
Length: 30 minutes (7,628 words)