Robotic kitchens aren’t on homemakers’ must-have lists yet, but they are starting to gain traction in restaurants.
Robert Michael/picture alliance via Getty Images
Patrick Lin, California Polytechnic State University
Can automated restaurants still be community and cultural spaces, or will they become feeding stations for humans? These and other questions loom, as AI and robot cooks reach the market.
A memorial to “Bough” in Kensington in North Philly.
Gordon Coonfield/Kensington Remembers
Parasports couldn’t exist without classifying competitors by their physical and mental limitations. But the process is far from perfect, and a handful of athletes have tried to game the system.
In the 1920s, many women became more comfortable in their skin. But the facts of life remained in short supply.
George Grantham Bain Collection/Library of Congress
A century ago, a pioneering sex researcher challenged the idea that respectable women did not – and should not – experience sexual desire or have sex, except to please men or have children.
A man holds up a Converse Chuck Taylor – Kamala Harris’ favorite footwear – during the vice president’s campaign rally on Aug. 9, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Clothing and makeup are silent, powerful ways for candidates to tell the American public who they are – and how they’ll lead.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain wears a shirt reading ‘Trump is a Scab’ at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19, 2024.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
It’s too reductive to simply smear scabs as sellouts. It’s important to understand why some workers might be motivated to weather scorn, rejection and even violence from their peers.
Prior to 1998, Harold of ‘Harold and the Purple Crayon’ was depicted as racially ambiguous.
Harper & Brothers, 1955
The choices of author and illustrator Crockett Johnson during the printing process – as well as his civil rights advocacy – make it entirely within the realm of possibility.
The three witches in ‘Macbeth’ – also known as the ‘weird,’ or ‘wyrd,’ sisters – are prophetesses who often do the opposite of what’s expected of them.
Royal Shakespeare Company Collection
Despite feeling some schadenfreude at watching politicians squirm over being derided as such, a scholar of speculative fiction wants to keep America weird.
Viewers in Chicago await a screening of the film ‘Medium Cool,’ focused on the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago.
Heather Hendershot
As the Democratic National Convention returns to Chicago, there’s an appetite in that city to revisit films from the bloody and violent time the convention was last held in that city: 1968.
More than 200 years after her death, Jane Austen’s views on slavery remain unclear.
Jim Dyson/Getty Images
The author of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and other classic novels used the words ‘slave’ and ‘slavery’ nearly a dozen times in her books.
There have been Black presidents and female presidents in movies, but no presidents with Kamala Harris’ background.
Klaus Hackenberg/The Image Bank/Getty Images
Peter Kastor, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Over the past half-century, American media has usually proclaimed that Black men and white women can be great presidents. But they have to be one or the other: a Black man or a white woman.
Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance holds a rally in his hometown, Middletown, Ohio, on July 22, 2024.
Luke Sharrett/The Washington Post via Getty Images
It happens in journalism and it happens in the arts. But in Congress – where just 2% of representatives held blue-collar or service-industry jobs before entering politics – it’s rampant.
Vernon Dalhart was a widely recorded singer in the early 20th century.
The Library of Congress
A term emerged in the 1980s for a spinal cord injury caused by breaking called ‘break-dancing neck.’
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif celebrates her victory in the women’s boxing 66-kilogram quarterfinal match at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 3, 2024.
Richard Pelham/Getty Images
In medieval Europe, vigilantism was rampant. Though there were rudimentary efforts to develop legal frameworks, the precepts could be bizarre, with justice sporadic and unevenly applied.
Missy Elliott’s music tells stories of Black cyborgs, space-time travel and postapocalyptic worlds.
Prince Williams/WireImage via Getty Images
Ben Stickle, Middle Tennessee State University and Brenda Vose, University of North Florida
Many jurisdictions treat pet theft like property theft, assigning dogs dollar values and failing to account for their emotional importance.
Excerpt from Faith’s diary: “This evening did some ironing and helped G. with her English. I have just about decided to let my hair grow for who can stand $1.25 for a hair cut? I do the girls’ so save some there.”
Andrea Kaston Tange
You can uncover the depths and hidden details of your own family’s unspoken narratives by thinking like an archival researcher writing an ‘investigative memoir.’
How we understand love shapes the trajectory of our relationships.
MicroStockHub/iStock via Getty Images Plus
A history professor recounts how being indoors during the pandemic led him to rediscover his fondness for video games – and to bring it into the classroom as well.
Boosters hope the renovated Michigan Central Station, once a symbol of Detroit’s decline, will now signal its rebirth.
Amy Sacka
Michigan Central Station stood abandoned for decades as a symbol of Detroit’s decline. A major investment by Ford has breathed new life into the structure – and, residents hope, the city.
Not your typical hooligans.
Jose Breton/Anadolu via Getty Images
The most successful teams at Europe’s soccer championship comprise diverse players, often thanks to immigration. Could that be influencing fans’ views of nationalism?