June 23, 2023

Diverse Voices and Intersectional Approaches

Hanna Askarpour

As we move into July, the excitement of summer starts to wear off. An air-conditioned apartment suddenly seems more exciting than soaking in the sun, and a book on the couch much more compelling than a Twitter scroll in a...

June 14, 2023

15 Must-Read Books for Pride Month 2023

Every June, we come together to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community and carry forward the legacy of the 1969 Stonewall Riots. These 15 books both provide insight into the enduring challenges faced by members of the LGBTQ+ community and explore the...

June 13, 2023

How Mapping the Black Experience Will Shape Society for a Better Future

Olive Vassell and Natasha A. Kelly

“If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go.” With these words, writer James Baldwin captured the essence of the power of remembrance and commemoration: practices that unite and empower us, providing opportunities...

June 12, 2023

Ten Must-Read Books for Juneteenth 2023

June 19th, or Juneteenth, commemorates the 1865 proclamation for the freedom of enslaved people in Texas, but it also has come to broadly celebrate Black American culture and the continuing fight by Black Americans for liberation and equality. The books...

June 7, 2023

Beethoven’s Music

Genius, Curiosity, Liver Disease, and Lead

Larry S. Sherman and Dennis Plies

In our book, Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music, we discuss the contributions of curiosity to creating music. Curiosity is a trait that can be described as “a state of information seeking that can...

June 1, 2023

Q&A: Patrick J. Charles on Vote Gun

Today, gun control is one of the most polarizing topics in American politics. However, before the 1960s, positions on firearms rights did not necessarily map onto partisan affiliation. What explains this drastic shift? In Vote Gun: How Gun Rights Became...

May 31, 2023

Oonagh McDonald on Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin burst on the scene in 2009 in the aftermath of the financial crisis when trust in the Federal Reserve and financial institutions was at an all-time low. It appeared to offer a new kind of payment without any intermediaries—a...

May 25, 2023

Q&A: Simon LeVay on Attraction, Love, Sex

Why do we have sex? Why do we fall in love? What attracts us to one another? And how do we compare to other species in the animal kingdom? Researchers have been trying to answer these questions for years, and...

May 17, 2023

Q&A: David Hellerstein on the “Wild Ride” and The Couch, the Clinic, and the Scanner

The Couch, the Clinic, and the Scanner, Dr. David Hellerstein’s new book, consists of fourteen personal chapters that capture the momentous changes in psychiatry over the past half century. Rather than a conventional dispassionate narrative, the tales told here explore...

May 12, 2023

Q&A: Don Grant on Nursing the Spirit

Illness and death have always raised profound spiritual concerns. However, today most people experience suffering and treatment in hospitals and other impersonal, bureaucratic facilities whose employees are expected to follow scientific, rationalized norms of behavior. How do professional caregivers—the nurses...

May 9, 2023

What Can a Study of American Polygamy Tell Us About Being Human?

William Jankowiak

America’s fascination with the cable show Sister Wives (about an American polygynous family), along with their increased interest in exploring the viability of forming a polyamour (or plural love) arrangement, arises out of a relentless interest in whether they can achieve a...

May 1, 2023

Q&A: Matthew Smith on The First Resort

In the mid-twentieth century, social psychiatry was an approach to mental health that stressed the prevention of mental illness rather than its treatment. In the 1960s, it led to the closure of asylums and the emergence of community mental health...