According to an analysis by The Hechinger Report, 150 schools in eight states across the U.S. used corporal punishment, or a form of physical pain, on 20% or more of their students that year. Sixty-nine of those schools, such as Collins Elementary School, are in Mississippi. Tara Garcia Mathewson investigates how and why this practice […]
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It’s So Sublime, and Our Top 5
“When I listened, I didn’t know if it was something I entered, or something that entered me. If it was within me or if it was me. Do you remember being 16 and loving a song? Of course you do. It felt like that. It felt like everything.” This week, we’re featuring “On (the) Sublime,” […]
Victoria Amelina: Ukraine and the Meaning of Home
“Hopefully, I will have turned out to be one of the worst investments the Russian Federation ever made.”
Slave Money Paved the Streets. Now This Posh RI City Strives to Teach Its Past.
Between 1700-1850, the city of Newport in tiny Rhode Island launched more slave trading voyages than anywhere in North America. And in a time when conservative school boards and state leaders around the U.S. are banning lessons about race and racism in schools, Newport is confronting its past: teaching students local Black history, African heritage, […]
Both Sides of The Mirror
Introducing The Longreads Questionnaire, featuring Vauhini Vara.
What Neko Case taught me about curation and the week’s Top 5
“When the media covered women in the grunge and alternative scene, it treated them like a genre unto itself. This genre, though, received almost no in-depth profiles or features.” Books are one of the great joys in my life. The other is music. I’ve been following singer songwriter Neko Case since 1997, after picking up […]
The Incredible Story of Finding My Brother in My 60s
“We were born a week apart, in the same hospital, to different mothers.”
Hungry Ghosts
“I think of all the hurts she can never outlive — the ghosts that can never be satisfied, no matter how much of herself she feeds to them.”
When a Houseplant Obsession Becomes a Nightmare
“Some of us just can’t resist the allure of the carnivorous Nepenthes. They’re beautiful, rare, and in every way life-consuming.”
The Loneliness of the Junior College Esports Coach
“He tried to save his wife through the video game they loved—and nearly lost himself. Then he signed up to lead a fledgling team of gamers in Cheyenne, Wyoming.”

