This week, we’re sharing stories from Justin Heckert, Hannah Louise Poston, Anne Helen Petersen, Jiayang Fan, and Rachel Greenwald Smith.
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Queens of Infamy: Josephine Bonaparte, from Malmaison to More-Than-Monarch
In fraught games of power politics, sometimes the best revenge is not being exiled to die alone on an island in the South Atlantic.
Queens of Infamy: Njinga
The Portuguese colonizers of West Central Africa learned it the hard way: you mess with the Queen of Ndongo and Matamba at your own peril.
What I Learned From Doing Amateur Porn
Nancy Jainchill recalls a ’70s sexcapade that helped her make (one month’s) rent, and began her exploration into women’s pleasure and sexual parity.
The Castration Heard Around the World
Lorena and John Wayne Bobbit’s famous castration story remains relevant twenty-five years after the incident, and just as painful.
United States of Conspiracy: An Interview with Anna Merlan
“Most people in America believe in one conspiracy to some extent, but the far end of the pool … is this desire to show that you really do reject all knowable authority.”
Los Angeles Plays Itself
In this land of constant reinvention, a longtime resident walks the streets to understand what the city was and what it’s becoming.
Queens of Infamy: Zenobia
In third-century Syria, a widowed monarch dared to be wildly ambitious — and almost brought the Roman Empire to its knees.
Queens of Infamy: Josephine Bonaparte, from Martinique to Merveilleuse
Even the Reign of Terror was no match for a determined young woman with a pug and a prophecy on her side.
Queens of Infamy: The Reign of Catherine de’ Medici
When your husband and male heirs are too useless or too dead to rule, you have to take matters into your own poison-gloved hands.

