Douglas Williams is currently a doctoral student in political science at the University of Alabama, where his research centers around public policy and politics as it relates to disadvantaged communities and the labor movement. You can find him on Twitter at @DougWilliams85, at a collaborative blog on Southern progressivism called The South Lawn, as well as at The […]
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Solving an Old Problem: Our College Longreads Pick
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: If only all universities had someone like Jesse Flickinger to explain their research projects to the masses. Flickinger takes his readers on an intellectual adventure that begins in a Kabul café and ends in a library […]
College Longreads Pick: 'The End of the Waffle House' by Jessica Contrera, Indiana University
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: You may have already read this week’s #college #longreads pick because someone posted it on Facebook or Twitter. Indiana University senior Jessica Contrera paid homage to the end of the local Waffle House with hours of […]
Longreads Member Drive Update: 400 New Members in Our First Day, plus Digg Buys the First Group Membership
Yesterday, we asked for your help, and you responded. Thanks to you, we welcomed 400 new Longreads Members. We’re now at 1,400 members—that’s great progress, but we’re still less than halfway to our goal of 5,000 Longreads Members. We need your help to keep spreading the word. You can share your support on Twitter here. […]
Nightmare in Maryville
When two teen girls are allegedly sexually assaulted by high school boys in the 12,000-population city of Maryville, Mo., sympathy is initially expressed for the girls and their families. And then a shift occurs: “Two days after discovering her daughter on the front porch, Coleman says, she got a phone call from another mother warning […]
Public Enemies: Social Media Is Fueling Gang Wars in Chicago
Gangs in Chicago have used social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread inflammatory messages about rivals and incite violence: “We naturally associate criminal activity with secrecy, with conspiracies hatched in alleyways or back rooms. Today, though, foolish as it may be in practice, street gangs have adopted a level of transparency that might […]
Reading List: The Producers
Matt Graves is the curator behind Buried Treasures, a new Flipboard feed (and Twitter account) dedicated to the best music storytelling on the web. Here are six of his picks on the topic of music producers, the often-overlooked architects of the music we hear and love.
Making the Magazine: A Reading List
27 must-read stories on the making of the world’s greatest magazines.
Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist. Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox. *** 1. Sinners in the Hands Sonia Smith | Texas Monthly | January 27, 2014 | 35 minutes (8,773 words) The town of Wells, […]
The Pain of Rural Poverty: Our College Pick
Every week, Syracuse University professor Aileen Gallagher helps Longreads highlight the best of college journalism. Here’s this week’s pick: Colleges share symbiotic relationships with their neighboring towns, and economic disparities tend to strain those relations. At Dartmouth, the school’s wealth and privilege overshadows the surrounding area’s rural poverty. In a detailed report by Charlie Rafkin […]

