“Recent research on lucid dreams suggests that consciousness exists along a spectrum between sleep and waking, between hallucination and revelation, between dreamworlds and reality.”
History
Posted inEditor's Pick
40 Acres and a Lie
“We compiled Reconstruction-era documents to identify 1,250 formerly enslaved Black Americans given land—only to have it returned to their enslavers.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Odd Birds
“In an era where gender identity and sexual orientation can get you a beating by bullies or shot dead in a nightclub, writer Shane Mitchell celebrates otherness — and a great-aunt who lived her life with courage and gusto.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Feud Tearing the Paleontology World Apart
“Two paleontologists have turned on each other, each claiming to have found new evidence about the worst day on Earth.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
As a Former IDF Soldier and Historian of Genocide, I Was Deeply Disturbed by My Recent Visit to Israel
“This summer, one of my lectures was protested by far-right students. Their rhetoric brought to mind some of the darkest moments of 20th-century history—and overlapped with mainstream Israeli views to a shocking degree.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Ukraine’s Death-Defying Art Rescuers
“When Putin invaded, a historian in Kyiv saw that Ukraine’s cultural heritage was in danger. So he set out to save as much of it as he could.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Vatican’s Secret Role in the Science of IVF
“More than half a century ago, men of science and men of faith gathered together to unlock the mysteries of female fertility. The answer: urine from the brides of Christ. And lo, those nuns gaveth.”
Posted inCuration
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring stories from Josh Dzieza, Mark Krotov, Wendy Brenner, Paul Brown, and Andrew Normal Wilson.
Posted inCuration
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
Featuring notable stories by Antonia Cundy, Adrian Walker, Evan Allen, Elizabeth Koh, Andrew Ryan, Kristin Nelson, Brendan McCarthy, Frederick Kaufman, Lygia Navarro, and Judith Hannah Weiss.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Tales From an Attic
“Suitcases once belonging to residents of a New York State mental hospital tell the stories of long-forgotten lives.”