When Aldous Huxley Dropped Acid
In Hollywood, the esteemed ex-pat made the acquaintance of Alfred Hubbard, a Kentucky-born smuggler of ill-repute who introduced him to a brave, new world.
Playing It Straight and Catching a Break
Cue games have had a lingering influence on our language and culture—even before the contributions of “Fast Eddie” Felson.
A Selection of Student Confessions
Did you break a campus rule? Let the students of Millersville Normal School show you how to confess to the administration.
“The Crocodile,” Dostoevsky’s Weirdest Short Story
Why being eaten by a crocodile named Little Karl is really a lesson in the dangers of foreign capital.
Writing Online Fiction in China
Many amateur “fan fiction” writers on the Chinese internet use real history as a canvas for time-travel stories that often break the fourth wall.
Nella Larsen’s Lessons in Library School
Larsen’s novels were influenced by her training in the New York Public Library system, where she faced rigid ideas about the racial classification of knowledge.
Dorothy Richardson and the Stream of Consciousness
Though often associated with Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, “stream of consciousness” novels spilled first from the pen of British modernist Dorothy Richardson.
The Ethics of On-Screen Violence in The Sympathizer
Film scholar Sylvia Shin Huey Chong offers a feminist reflection on the theme of rape in Viet Thanh Nguyen’s Pulitzer-winning novel The Sympathizer.
The Governess, in Her Own Written Words
Although few women were employed as governesses in Victorian Britain, their potential for social and class transgression left Britons awash with worry.
The Princess Brides of the Malay Annals
Narratives about women as gift objects in classical literature show the power dynamics of trade and diplomacy in the early modern Malay world.