What the Barista is Brewing Today
Grab some espresso and dive in for some brewmination
Coming Out in England’s Trade Union Movement
Coming out was one of the core values of the gay liberation movement in the early 1970s, but coming out at work generated a host of problems. By Bob Cant A series of sackings in England in the mid-seventies made it clear that coming out at work was going to be a contested area. Louise[…]
George Platt Lynes: An Early-20th Century Gay Photographer and His Legacy
Lynes was a highly sought-after commercial and fashion photographer in the 1930s and 1940s. But he had to keep his most important body of work hidden away. From the late 1920s until his death in 1955, George Platt Lynes was one of the world’s most successful commercial and fine art photographers. His work was included[…]
18th-Century Voyage for the Northwest Passage
There were many expeditions in search of a Northwest Passage during the 1700s. They include the voyages of Frances Smith, Samuel Hearne and James Cook. By the end of the century, George Vancouver had explored the northwest coast in detail. In 1670 the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was founded as a commercial enterprise to obtain[…]
Mining the Languages of Empire in the Early Americas
The silver industry influenced life in the colonial Americas and the Atlantic world on social, political, and economic levels. “Oye hueón está tan rica la mina,” one operative said to his friend on a typical March day in the altiplano, nearly ten years ago. It was warm in the sunny spaces where they walked, and chilly[…]
The Architectural Patronage and Political Prowess of Herod the Great
Herod created architecture that implemented Roman technology, designs, and styles, while co-mingling them with his existing Hellenistic style of architecture. Abstract After supporting Marc Antony in the Battle of Actium (31 B.C.), King Herod, fearful of losing his power, went to Rome, apologized to Augustus and assured him that he was his biggest supporter. Augustus,[…]
The Probable Pagan Origin of an Ancient Jewish Custom: Purification with Red Heifer’s Ashes
The Jewish red heifer ash ritual may have originated in surrounding pagan cultures reflecting the transition from pantheism to monotheism. Dr. Efraim LevAssistant Professor of Israel StudiesUniversity of Haifa Dr. Simcha Lev-YadunProfessor of BiologyUniversity of Haifa Abstract One of the most enigmatic of all ancient Jewish religious customs was the use of ashes of a[…]
A Chilling Proposal in the 1920s for an Orphanage Scientific Study
The history of race science is a history of racist science, as epitomized by this proposed but never carried-out experiment from the early 20th century. In the late 1920s, scientists hatched an outrageous plan to settle a question at the heart of American racial thought: were differences between racial groups driven by environment or by[…]
Foundlings and Orphans in 18th-Century England
Exploring the world of poverty, high mortality, prejudice and charity that influenced the creation of Oliver Twist. Introduction Children lacking one or both parents are a frequent theme in Charles Dickens’s novels, which would not have surprised his Victorian readers because high mortality at the time meant that becoming an orphan was not a rare misfortune.[…]
The Kingdom of Hungary from the Year 1000
The Kingdom of Hungary was at times a major power in Central Europe. Introduction The Kingdom of Hungary (short form: Hungary), which existed from 1000 to 1918, and then from 1920 to 1946, was a state and at times a major power in Central Europe. Situated between East and West and a significant player in the Balkans it[…]
The Magyars, from Prehistory to Modern Hungary
Hungary’s traits are rooted in this a history of fluid borders, as well as the strong migratory tendencies of people of Hungarian ancestry. Introduction Hungarians or Magyars[5] are an ethnic group primarily associated with Hungary. The word Hungarian has also a wider meaning, because – especially in the past – it referred to all inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hungary irrespective of their[…]
Seneca: Statesman Unto Death
A philosopher, writer, orator and statesman, Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) was Rome’s leading intellectual during the middle of the first century AD. Brought back from exile, he and his friends would virtually rule Rome in the first years of Nero’s reign. The second son of a wealthy family, Seneca was educated in the[…]
Aspasia of Miletus: The Art of Eloquence
Aspasia was a woman of formidable intelligence and eloquence who influenced many of the important writers, thinkers, and statesmen of her time. Aspasia of Miletus (470-410 BCE, approximately) is best known as the consort and close companion of the great Athenian statesman Pericles. She was a metic (a person not born in Athens) and, accordingly, was not allowed to marry[…]
Deadly Notes: Atlantic Soundscapes and the Writing of the Middle Passage
The ships traveling the pathways of the Middle Passage—and beyond—were anything but silent spaces. “A Kind of Chorus” [S]ince speech was forbidden, slaves camouflaged the word under the provocative intensity of the scream. No one could translate the meaning of what seemed to be nothing but a shout. It was taken to be nothing but[…]
Supernatural Sound: Science and Shamanism in the Arctic
The Arctic became a place beyond empirical grasp: the real/fantasy land of orality about which those living within the textual horizon of rational empiricism dreamed with fear and longing. Toolemak’s Voice Scanning the horizon off the coast of Greenland in 1822, William Scoresby witnessed the impossible: floating in the sky was an upside down ship.[…]
Hearing, Sensing, Feeling Sound: On Music and Physiology in Victorian England, 1857-1894
Acoustical science fundamentally transformed the ways that Victorians conceptualized the relations between aesthetics and the body. This article focuses on new developments in the burgeoning field of acoustical science that emerged in the mid-to-late-nineteenth century. During this time, sound science began to flourish in England, particularly through lectures by Hermann von Helmholtz and John Tyndall[…]
Metsys’s Musician: A Newly Recognized Early Work and Its Implications
This new attribution creates a benchmark for the late-medieval artist’s oeuvre, against which other works can now be compared. By Rafael Barrientos Martinez and Dr. Larry Silver Martinez: PhD Student in Art History, University of California, Los Angeles Silver: Farquhar Professor of Art History, University of Pennsylvania The major late fifteenth-century portrait of Jacob Obrecht, from[…]
Tuned to the Senses: An Archaeoacoustic Perspective on Ancient Chavín
The ancient pilgrimage center at Chavín provides the multifaceted material evidence needed for an archaeoacoustic case study. By Dr. Miriam KolarLead InvestigatorChavín de Huántar Archaeological Acoustics ProjectStanford University Sound and Archaeology Buttressed into the Peruvian Andes, the ancient mortared-stone complex at Chavín de Huántar resonates with sound and story. Visitors to this 3,000-year-old ceremonial center[…]
Acoustics of Ancient Greek Theaters
The sound quality in ancient times was likely much better than it is today. By Brigit Katz It is often said that the acoustics of ancient Greek theaters were so sophisticated that spectators in the back row could hear the actors with perfect clarity, long before microphones came into the picture. In modern times, tour guides will[…]
The Prohibition-Era Origins of the Modern Craft Cocktail Movement
Something needed to be done to mask the taste of bootleg alcohol that could include ingredients ranging from dead rats to wood tar. With America in the middle of a flourishing craft beer and craft spirits movement, it’s easy to forget that Prohibition was once the law of the land. One hundred years ago, on[…]
American Cycles of Prohibition: Do They Have Roots in Ancient Drinking Norms?
Ancient amphorae / Southampton University, Creative Commons It has been proposed that different drinking norms developed in northern and southern Europe during antiquity and that these patterns are still found today in the cultures overlying these areas. By Dr. Ruth C. Engs Professor Emeriti in Applied Health Science Indiana University Bloomington Abstract It has been proposed that[…]
Beer Brewing, Industrialization, and London Water Supplies Since the 16th Century
London was already a major beer producer in the sixteenth century. London was already a major beer producer in the sixteenth century. However, beginning in the eighteenth century, urbanization and industrialization meant a sharp increase in scale for brewers. Because brewers required large quantities of sweet water for manufacturing their product, this also resulted in[…]
“Come hear this ditty”: 17th-Century Drinking Songs and the Challenges of Hearing the Past
Alcohol played a central role in early modern life, occupying much of the time of both law enforcement officers and guzzling “cupp companions.” In April, 1612, the constables of Calne, Wiltshire, made a desperate plea to their superiors—the county magistrates—to help them reverse a surge in the number of alehouses in their town. Their complaint[…]
An Introduction to the Roman Drunken Satyr
Conservator William Shelley and preparator Rita Gomez of the Getty Museum oversee the sculpture’s safe arrival in the Getty Villa conservation studios. Drunken Satyr, 1st century BC–1st century AD, Roman. Bronze, 137 cm high. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, inv. 5628. Reproduced by agreement with the Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities and Tourism. National[…]
Brewing an Ancient Graeco-Roman Beer
Beer is the most consumed beverages in the world with a long history. What does the ancient art of brewing tell us about culture and tastes? Beer is the most consumed alcoholic beverage in the world; it is also the most popular drink after water and tea. In the modern world, however, little consideration is typically[…]
After a Decade of Commercial Space Travel, What’s Next?
It has been 10 years since Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the commercial space age. What hurdles must be overcome before private companies begin exploring, colonizing and mining other planets? In many industries, a decade is barely enough time to cause dramatic change unless something disruptive comes along – a new technology, business model or service[…]
Apollo 17: The Swan Song of Manned Space Exploration
Is there hope humanity will once again push beyond Earth? By Ryan P. Smith Few moments in the Cold War were as unambiguously triumphant for the United States as the landing of the Apollo 11 astronauts on the surface of the Moon in the summer of 1969. The realization of a dream first championed by John F. Kennedy,[…]
VDNKh Moscow: The Most Soviet Park in Russia
When you think of emblematic Soviet buildings, you don’t usually think of rabbits, but there they are. When you think of emblematic Soviet buildings, you don’t usually think of rabbits, but there they are, dancing and frolicking, even mating across the curved frieze of the Pavilion to Rabbit-Rearing and Fur Breeding, in a far corner[…]
Russian Nihilists and the Prehistory of Spy Fiction
In the 1880s and 90s, the age-old literary figure of the spy underwent a number of transformations that would establish its new meanings for the new century. Spy fiction has invariably proved to be an accurate barometer of political anxieties, at times even a potent fomenter of public paranoia in its own right, and it[…]
The Panama Canal’s Forgotten Casualties
The Panama Canal was a tremendous achievement by the U.S. and a display of their power and abilities. However, the health costs to the mostly Caribbean contract workers was enormous. It was the greatest infrastructure project the world had ever seen. When the 77 kilometre-long Panama Canal officially opened in 1914, after 10 years of[…]
Ancient Walls
Walls began to rise around cities throughout Mesopotamia shortly after urbanization began. Introduction The English word ‘wall’ is derived from the Latin, ‘vallus’ meaning ‘a stake’ or ‘post’ and designated the wood-stake and earth palisade which formed the outer edge of a fortification. The palisades were in use early on and are mentioned by Homer in the[…]
