On the Battle Lost: Nobel Lecture by Svetlana Alexievich

“I do not stand alone at this podium … There are voices around me, hundreds of voices.” A moving speech by Svetlana Alexievich, 2015 Nobel Prize winner for Literature.

Published: Dec 11, 2015
Length: 21 minutes (5,309 words)

Life as a Reverse Immigrant

Despite having been born and raised in Canada, when Andrea Yu moved to Hong Kong she was in a sense going home. Her mother had immigrated from Hong Kong thirty-three years before, making Yu one participant in a growing trend: second-generation reverse migration.

Author: Andrea Yu
Published: Sep 27, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2,976 words)

Parenting While Homeless

A profile of a family struggling to raise four kids in a Baltimore shelter.

Source: The Atlantic
Published: Dec 8, 2015
Length: 19 minutes (4,945 words)

The Astonishing Power of YouNow

Teens are gaining a huge following—and making money—on a little-known video streaming network.

Source: Slate
Published: Dec 9, 2015
Length: 12 minutes (3,061 words)

Suddenly Seymour Disappeared

Meet Seymour Britchky, the New York City food critic who time forgot.

Source: Tasting Table
Published: Jun 23, 2015
Length: 11 minutes (2,932 words)

The Scandalous Legacy of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Collector of Art and Men

Isabella “is not a woman, she is a locomotive—with a Pullman car attached,” Henry James once remarked. Lyz Lenz investigates the woman behind the eponymous Boston museum.

Author: Lyz Lenz
Source: Broadly
Published: Dec 3, 2015
Length: 9 minutes (2,374 words)

Unpregnant: The silent, secret grief of miscarriage

Alexandra Kimball on the isolation of suffering a miscarriage, and the missing language of grieving this loss.

Published: Dec 9, 2015
Length: 26 minutes (6,693 words)

Being a Girl: A Brief Personal History of Violence

Anne Thériault traces a lifetime of gendered violence, assault, harassment, and threats starting at age six in this brutal but important read.

Source: The Belle Jar
Published: Dec 3, 2015
Length: 6 minutes (1,662 words)

The Ties That Bind Jihadists

Most scholars of radical Islam focus on doctrine, military tactics, and political statements. However, a small but growing number of academics have turned their research to the seemingly mundane but rich field of jihadist culture, exploring everything from dreams and jokes to poetry.

Published: Nov 28, 2015
Length: 8 minutes (2,116 words)

Blues on Wheels

Screams, threats, lies, labor violations, and dog attacks—a writer experiences it all after becoming a carrier for the United States Postal Service.

Published: Sep 23, 2014
Length: 20 minutes (5,105 words)