BY DAN GOLDING “Every generation has a legend.” I have seen these words twice in my lifetime. The first time, I was twelve years old and downloading the first teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace on a 56k dial-up modem in rural Australia. These were the early days of the … More The legacy and nostalgia of the Star Wars franchise
BY NICHOLAS TAMPIO Parents have dreams for their children. Sometimes, the dreams are specific; we want our children to play an instrument, enroll at our alma mater, or become engineers. Mostly, however, we want our children to do what will make them happy. If they want to try out for the school play, enroll in … More Parents versus Planners
BY NICHOLAS GASKILL Color has a secret. In one form or another, this has been the message of the recent boom in color studies. Sometimes the secret is psychological. Seeing blue involves not only light waves and retinas, but also an act of interpretation based on lighting conditions and on what, in the past, we’ve … More The Secret of the Secret of Color
BY ANIKA FAJARDO I once went swimming in natural hot springs in Colombia. It was the mid-1990s and Colombia was, according to the U.S. State Department, the most dangerous country on earth. At twenty-one years old, I had just arrived to see my father for the first time since I was a baby. His wife … More Anika Fajardo: On searching for identity, exploring origins, and reconciling what family means
BY BARBARA SJOHOLM By the Fire is an uncommon collection of Sami folktales recorded by a woman who was herself quite remarkable for her time. Emilie Demant Hatt was born in a rural village in Jutland, Denmark, in 1873 and only attended school up to the age of fourteen. But with help from her mother’s … More How a chance encounter led to an uncommon collection of Sami folktales by Emilie Demant Hatt.
By Miriam J. Abelson What does it mean to be a man in America? This question was at the forefront of the minds of many of the 66 trans men I interviewed while doing research for my book, Men in Place. These men lived in a wide variety of cities and rural areas across the … More American Masculinity in a New Era
BY LINDA LeGARDE GROVER The story began for me when I was a child, too young to question but old enough to see, hear, and remember. Adults conversing over tea occasionally forgot that there were children present and alluded to loss: to Indian boarding schools; to runaways and the foster home system; to inexperienced girls … More Linda LeGarde Grover: On resilience and loss.
Dear Reader, Octogenarian Haze Evans believes that curiosity is the collagen of the mind, staving off mental sags, droops, and wrinkles. She doesn’t care that Society reserves its pompom waving and back flips for those who’ve yet to cross the 40-year line; as a newspaper columnist, she’s got people to listen to, stories to write, … More Letter from a Radical Hag
BY JOANNA FRUEH Surrealism is an art and literary movement in the early twentieth century. Its best-known work is a painting by Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory, in which clocks look like they’re melting in a bleak and blank terrain. In Surrealist painting, distortions of everyday reality, in scale, shape, and space give surreal … More The Big Surreal
BY JANE ST. ANTHONY In seventh grade, Patrick handed a note to me. It didn’t travel far. Patrick and I sat side by side, our desks aligned. Sandra sat directly behind Patrick, and Steven was behind me. When Sister Evangeline wasn’t watching us, seventh grade felt like a jolly double date in a convertible. “I … More Jane St. Anthony: What, after all, is normal?
