The ancient Irish get far too much credit for Halloween
Lisa Bitel, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences This time of year, I often run across articles proclaiming Halloween a modern form of the pagan Irish holiday of…
Some people love to scare themselves in an already scary world − here’s the psychology of why
Sarah Kollat, Penn State Fall for me as a teenager meant football games, homecoming dresses – and haunted houses. My friends organized group trips to the local fairground, where barn…
Kamala Harris’ purported Irish ancestry highlights complicated backstory of identity and enslavement
Christine Kinealy, Quinnipiac University; Kimberly DaCosta, New York University, and Miriam Nyhan Grey, Mary Immaculate College When Barack Obama was elected president, the people of Moneygall in Ireland celebrated. Birthplace…
75 years ago, the KKK and anti-communists teamed up to violently stop a folk concert in NY
Nina Silber, Boston University Few Americans today know about the events that occurred 75 years ago in the small Hudson Valley community of Peekskill, New York. That’s where a riot…
‘House of the Dragon’ was inspired by the chaos of the Middle Ages, a world without law and order
David Routt, University of Richmond Students in my medieval history courses often wonder whether historical reality can be gleaned from medieval cinematic fantasy. I tell them that fantasy does not…
What is love? A philosopher explains it’s not a choice or a feeling − it’s a practice
Edith Gwendolyn Nally, University of Missouri-Kansas City Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it…
A brief history of AI: how we got here and where we are going
Adrian Hopgood, University of Portsmouth With the current buzz around artificial intelligence (AI), it would be easy to assume that it is a recent innovation. In fact, AI has been…
What Frederick Douglass learned from an Irish antislavery activist: ‘Agitate, agitate, agitate’
Christine Kinealy, Quinnipiac University Though Frederick Douglass remains the most well-known abolitionist to visit Ireland in the decades prior to the American Civil War, he was not the only one.…
Quantum computers are like kaleidoscopes − why unusual metaphors help illustrate science and technology
Sorin Adam Matei, Purdue University Quantum computing is like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: You never know what you’re gonna get. Quantum phenomena – the behavior of matter and energy…
Fathers need to care for themselves as well as their kids – but often don’t
Derek M. Griffith, Georgetown University and Elizabeth C. Stewart, Vanderbilt University If you had to choose, which would you rather have: a healthy father or a good father? Studies suggest…