Throughout Baroque and Rococo Europe, the hand-held fan was far more than a cooling device. It was the sceptre of sovereignty for aristocratic women, a fashionably folded emblem of refinement and rank. Introduced to French…
Read more →When we say someone “sets off alarm bells in our head,” it’s no figure of speech. Humans have an uncanny knack for sensing unspoken tension. The moment a hostile glare, an urgent tone, or even…
Read more →In the age of sail and caravan, money was as tangible as the silver in your purse. An Ottoman sarraf (money-changer) in an 18th-century Istanbul bazaar would heft every coin on a balance and judge…
Read more →In the Habsburg lands of late Enlightenment and Restoration, policing public morality became a paramount state project. Building on Joseph II’s reforms, officials created a new tier of “police delicts” – minor public-order offenses –…
Read more →For more information on Untenable: Our Fragile Preservation check out the production’s official page. Throughout Western history, people have believed that fate and heredity can intertwine in uncanny ways. Ancient mythmakers, theologians, and even early…
Read more →For more information on Untenable: Our Fragile Preservation check out the production’s official page. There is a peculiar afterlife to the old Habsburg dominions. Long after Austria-Hungary vanished in 1918, its legacy remains lodged in…
Read more →For more information on Untenable: Our Fragile Preservation check out the production’s official page. Cinnabar and its pigment vermilion have been the color of kings and of death. Literally “blood of the earth,” cinnabar is…
Read more →For more information on Untenable: Our Fragile Preservation check out the production’s official page. Across cultures and epochs, the sudden sight of a snow-white animal has stirred both awe and terror. White deer vanishing into…
Read more →For more information on Untenable: Our Fragile Preservation check out the production’s official page. Humanity’s oldest literature wrestles directly with mortality. The Epic of Gilgamesh (c.2100 BCE), one of history’s first great tales, centers on…
Read more →Epigenetics was first coined in the 1940s by developmental biologist Conrad Waddington to describe how the “epigenetic landscape” guides cells toward different fates[1]. Today, epigenetics refers to chemical modifications on DNA or associated proteins that…
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