Writing
In Session
How Anthony Lewis educated a wary nation about the Supreme Court
In the late 1950s, the U.S. Supreme Court was as controversial and obscure as it had ever been. But the newspapermen of the day were barely equipped for the task.
The Paris Review Daily
The Last Deaf Utopia
Village sign languages, vanishing fast
Among anthropologists, the Martha’s Vineyard deaf community has long been legendary. But in recent years, academics have begun to find more communities like it throughout the world.
The Boston Globe Ideas section
In Syria, Speaking in Code
How people communicate when the government is watching
To suggest that a person was an informer, some would say khattu heluw: “His handwriting is beautiful.”
The Boston Globe Ideas section
The Supremes
How I fell in love with the Supreme Court
Here’s how you might fall in love with the Supreme Court: sitting in a dark theater, watching two actors facing one another in desk chairs on a minimally dressed stage, reenacting an oral argument.
The Paris Review Daily
Prayer Type
How Eliyahu Koren used typography to encourage a new way to pray
Publishers of prayer books have long struggled to engage American Jews, to heighten their alertness at synagogue.
Tablet
A Terrible Beauty
Landscape photography in a man-altered world
Turning away from the idealized landscapes of Ansel Adams, Richard Misrach surveys Louisiana's Cancer Alley.
Columbia Magazine (no longer online)
Business Talk
Have we been blaming the wrong people for our most annoying phrases?
A new analysis suggests that some of our most detested business jargon may not come from business at all.
The Boston Globe Ideas section
Writing the Script
Is the time right for an Indian type renaissance?
Five years ago in September, typeface designer Peter Biľak got a last-minute invitation to a new world.
The Perfect Deformity
What gives political cartoons their enduring power?
“A pamphlet is no more than a violation of opinion; a caricature amounts to an act of violence,” declared King Louis-Philippe of France in 1835.
Columbia Magazine
Lost Birds
Four adopted women seek out their Native American roots
For decades, children were separated from their birth parents and placed with white families in what was promoted as an enlightened effort to aid assimilation.
Al Jazeera America (no longer online)
Full Mental Jacket
The revelatory book covers of Peter Mendelsund
His layering of photographs, drawings, and type gives the covers a three-dimensional quality—even an implied motion, like a freeze-frame of a film that might start up again at any moment.
Columbia Magazine