In the French filmmaker Robert Bresson's cinematography, the linkage of fragmented, dissimilar images challenges our assumption that we know either what things are in themselves or the infinite ways in which they are entangled.  The "bond" of Sharon...

In July 2009, the "American Journal of Sociology" (AJS) began publishing book reviews by an individual writing as Barbara Celarent, professor of particularity at the University of Atlantis. Mysterious in origin, Celarent's essays taken together provi...

The book of Genesis records the fiery fate of Sodom and Gomorrah – a storm of fire and brimstone was sent from heaven and, for the wickedness of the people, God destroyed the cities "and all the plains, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that...

During the past decade, armed drones have entered the American military arsenal as a core tactic for countering terrorism. When coupled with access to reliable information, they make it possible to deploy lethal force accurately across borders while...

Alaska history from the days before statehood is rich in stories of colorful characters – prospectors, settlers, heroes, and criminals. And right alongside them were judges and lawyers, working first to establish the rule of law in the territory, the...

From eminent biologists like Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin to famous authors such as Rudyard Kipling in his "Just So Stories", many people have asked, "Why do zebras have stripes?" There are many explanations, but until now hardly any have...

In academia, the traditional role of the humanities is being questioned by the "posts" – postmodernism, poststructuralism, and postfeminism – which means that the project of writing history only grows more complex. In "History as a Kind of Writing",...

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa has defined the childhoods of an entire generation. Over the past twenty years, international NGOs and charities have devoted immense attention to the millions of African children orphaned by the disease. But in "Cryin...

In recent years, as peace between Israelis and Palestinians has remained cruelly elusive, scholars and activists have increasingly turned to South African history and politics to make sense of the situation. In the early 1990s, both South Africa and...

The influx of African migrants into Europe in recent years has raised important issues about changing labor economies, new technologies of border control, and the effects of armed conflict. But attention to such broad questions often obscures a funda...