Under The Hill of Riches
Llama sacrifice, desperation, and tourism in Bolivia’s mines.
A Brief History of Tontines:
The Most Popular Insurance Product You’ve Never Heard Of
Confidence Game
Could gambling on your health be the best way to safeguard it?
Hyphen Anxiety
A Franco-American worries that he’s not quite French enough.
Journey Into Silence
Can I renounce speech, and almost everything else, for three months?
Private Shetznitz
Why would a peace-loving, left-leaning, lactose-intolerant Jew from the Chicago suburbs join the Israeli Army?
From Words to Buildings
What good is language to an architect?
Blazing Saddles
In which three friends take a bike trip for which failure is an option.
Heavy Reading
“You will be locked up in an icy prison, unable to get out.”
Crouching Tiger, Blow-Dried Snow Leopard
If you’ve always wondered what stuffed animals are all about, there’s no better place to be a fly on the wall than the World Taxidermy Championships.
Pinstripe Generals
Everyone’s worried about the “militarization of foreign policy.” But a program aimed at “civilianizing the military” might be just as important in the long run.
The Tatami Edge
In reeds and rushes, searching for the soul of Japan.
The Village Takes to the Road
On the night bus across northern Spain.
Yawn
It’s one of the best things you can do for your brain.
Ornamental and Essential
From College Hall: We need arts and culture to feel fully alive and to live as well as we can.
Chasing Aztlán
A summer of food politics, social justice, and Chicana epiphanies in Florida’s tomato belt.
My Alumni Magazine, Myself
Fifty years of reading, skimming, ignoring, and connecting with the Gazette.
Towards an Old Architecture
On a bare rock island off the Spanish coast, a young architect contends with the anxiety of Le Corbusier’s influence.
Lessons from the General
What Cuba can teach the U.S. about educational reform.
I’ve Never Been in Paris
Poetry by Stephen Krewson
Introduction to the Symphony
“There they come, the birds of my youth.”
A World Without End
Past is prologue? Not in New Orleans, where past is present.
Not Just For Kids
Our adult obsession with youth sports isn’t just unsettling. It’s tradition.
Dancing Against The Stars
In the surreal world of dance competitions, victory can take a toll.





















