Politics and History

Teens walk out against gun violence on March 14 in Madison, Wis.

As we hear out the ambitions of today's teen activists, politicians and artists, what do they think adults need to do to help them change the world?More

Angie Jiang goes to Washington

Have you ever tried to lobby a US Senator? How about when you were 17? Angie Jiang did. She’s a high school senior. She’s on the swim team. She loves Beyonce. And she’s an advisor to the UN.More

Benito Mussolini, during the march on Rome,

In 2017, a new museum of fascism was proposed in Predappio, Italy—the birthplace of Benito Mussolini. Historically, the town was already a pilgrimage site for neo-Fascist groups. Journalist Ilaria Maria Sala explains the town’s history with fascism and how they’re trying to reckon with it today.More

ignored on the phone

For three decades, MIT professor Sherry Turkle's been looking at the ways we interact with machines. She believes our digital devices are taking a toll on our personal relationships.More

Eyes everywhere

The personal devices we live with and depend on — our computers, tablets, smartphones and more— all share information about us. Randolph Lewis tells more stories about how we’re being watched in a book called “Under Surveillance.”More

The Trial of Saddam

The young American soldiers who protected Saddam Hussein during his trial spent hours alone with the “Butcher of Baghdad” and unexpectedly grew to like him. They were devastated by his execution and its violent aftermath. More

Surrounded by jerks.

TTBOOK producer Doug Gordon wonders if he's surrounded by a**holes.More

A crystal ball

There's no shortage of forecasts about the future these days. But did you know that ordinary people can out-predict the pros? More

Columns

Have we lost sight of ancient virtues like courage, compassion and truth?  Mark Edmundson thinks we have, and he says we'd do well to read Homer, Plato and the ancient sages.More

Palestine

Carlos Fraenkel wanted to take philosophy out into the streets, so he met with students at Palestinian and Egyptian universities, and found that Plato, Maimonides and other great philosophers can open up a culture of conversation and debate.More

Street arrow

Psychologist Robert Enright breaks down cognitive steps to letting go of trauma.More

Tents of scientists during Antarctic summer

When Jane Willenbring was a young scientist working in Antarctica, she was the target of constant hazing by her team leader. Years later, she filed a complaint. David Marchant was recently found guilty of sexual harassment by Boston University.More

Jukebox hero

In 1985, The New Yorker writer Susan Orlean started traveling around the country to find out how Americans spend their Saturday nights. One thing she discovered? How many Saturday night songs there are.
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Still in bed

People in every century, every age have complained about feeling exhausted. What’s changed over time are the explanations. Cultural historian Anna Katharina Schaffner lays them out in her new history of exhaustion, "Exhaustion: A History."More

Jet Lag

Christopher J. Lee says jet lag has become more than a temporarily scrambled body clock. It’s become a way of life.More

Scythians at the Tomb of Ovid c.1640 (CC0)

When Donna Zuckerberg noticed references to classical writers popping up on neo-Nazi and white supremacist websites, she decided to investigate. Why are they so invested in the classics?More

The parthenon

As a French-Tunisian Muslim and political scientist, Nadia Marzouki has come to believe that Americans are actually ambivalent about some of our own sacred values - like freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Even democracy.More

Black Lives Matter is just one movement whose online presence took root among black Twitter users.

One person’s bubble can be another person’s safe space — a place where you don’t have to pretend and where you can feel supported and understood. For many black Americans, that place is Twitter. Media scholar Meredith Clark explains why.More

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