The World Samba Made

Hertzman’s book on samba illuminates a common struggle for music scholars and cultural historians: how can musical sounds inform our cultural histories?

What Price Peace in Our Time?

Though clearly in favor of the 2015 agreement that limited Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear weapons capability in return for lifting sanctions, the strength of Parsi's account is in its ability to speak to many of the players.

Life With Rodents

I had been surprised days earlier when I found gray fur on one of the traps, from a now partially bald mouse who had a story to tell his many buddies, but here was something worse: not an uncaught rodent, but a half-caught rodent.

Lords of the Flies

Insects may be the perfect villains, but there are inherent problems with casting insects as the bad guys with whom heroes must do battle.

Animal House

Shuffling through the vaccination and microchip records, reading the myriad names, I sometimes smile with nostalgic fondness, but more often my eyes mist as I am reminded of the multitudes we have loved but lost.

Turtles All the Way Down

In a number of ancient traditions, the world is believed to rest on the back of a giant turtle, which leads to the epistemological question of what might be supporting that turtle.

How Animals Teach Us to be Human

In some sense, animals may possess a more instinctive humanity than we do. The world is our classroom, and all its inhabitants are our teachers.

Minding Nemo

Our alienation from fishes stems from the fact that they have existed, both literally and figuratively, beneath the surface of our awareness. Gaze over a lake, a river, or an ocean, and while there may be legions of fishes carrying on with their lives within inches of the surface, we witness nothing of it.

Some Interesting Tales About Animals in the Human World

An incomplete listicle of how we think about animals.

Bulldogs, Gridirons, and Saturday Afternoons

Mascots in sports–especially animal mascots–create a vision that fans imagine as reality until it becomes tradition. A mascot is a stand-in for how we see ourselves, if only for three or four hours on a Saturday.

Skip to content