Here are a few interesting articles and pieces we found around the web this week. If you come across something that other intellectual historians might enjoy, please let us know in the comments section.
Emily:
Our very own Erin McGuirl, New York Needs a History of Reading (NY Society Library)
Elaine Sciolino, Lifting the Veil on the New York Public Library’s Erotica Collection (NY Times)
Claire Potter, Books That Matter: Twenty-five Years of Gender Trouble (S-USIH Blog)
Anthony Reid, Benedict Anderson [obituary] (Guardian)
Daisy Dunn, Revenge of the Greats, on classics education (New Statesman)
Michael J. Lewis, The new ‘Horror Victorianum’ (New Criterion)
James Romm, Beginning Greek, Again and Again (NY Times)
Mo Moulton, Watching Downton Abbey with an Historian: The More Things Change (The Toast)
A new book I am very excited about is Jennifer Ingleheart, ed., Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities (OUP)
And, my absolute favorite thing on the internet this week, Mallory Ortberg, On College Life—that is, in 1893 Oxford, with surprising similarities to today (The Toast)
Madeline:
Melissa Eddy, “‘Mein Kampf,’ Hitler’s Manifesto, Returns to German Shelves” (NYT)
Christopher de Bellaigue, “Persia: The Court at Twilight” (NYR Daily)
Claudia Swan, “Vermeer as Scientist” (TLS)
Brooke:

Josh Garrett-Davis “The South Stole Americana”  (LA Review of Books)
Adam McLean “Alchemical Hoax: A Modern Alchemical Hoax Exposed”  (Alchemy Website)
Samantha Hunt “A Brief History of Books That Do Not Exist”  (Lit Hub)

Daniel:
Brendan P. Foht, “Socially Just Science” (The New Atlantis)
Paul La Farge, “The Deep Space of Digital Reading” (Nautilus)
James Graham Wilson, “The Uneasy Relationship Between Policy and History” (War on the Rocks)
Luke Spencer, “Exploring the Forgotten Art Deco Artifacts of the New Yorker Hotel” (Atlas Obscura)
Mary Midgley, “The Mythology of Selfishness” (The Philosophers Magazine)
Erin:
Henri Cole, Swimming with Oliver Sacks (New Yorker)
Simon Davies, Headless Bear News (Appositions)
Tara Isabella Burton, Dark Books (Aeon)
Luc Sante, The Other Paris (Farrar, Straus, & Giraux, 2015)
Carolyn:
Jedediah Purdy, “The Bundys and the Irony of American Vigilantism” (New Yorker)
Anna Aslanyan, “Fireman Shostakovich” (LRB Blog)
Sonja Hartwig, “Der globalisierte Vogel” (Die Zeit)
Jake:

Suzanne Kahn The Next Battle for Marriage Equality (Dissent)

Jonathan Russell Clark The Failed Mechanics of Masculinity: On B.H. Fairchild’s ‘The Blue Buick’ (The Millions)

Tara Isabella Burton The Countries We Think We See (The Paris Review)

Tressie McMillan Cottom When Your Curriculum Has Been Tumblurized (tressiemc)

Run those medieval fingerprints through AFIS (The History Blog)

Uzma Z. Rizvi Ephemeral Layers: Coffee, Snapchat, and Violence (Savage Minds)