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Humanities

Persecuted Chinese writer escapes to the U.S.

Arts, Culture & Media

Writer Liao Yiwu, who spent years in prison in China, escaped this summer and will tour the U.S. as his latest book is released in English.

Artifacts from Iraq

With ISIS destroying priceless artifacts in Iraq, some museums are hesitant to return looted artifacts

Culture
The World

What Should Become of the USPS?

Business, Economics and Jobs
The World

Colorado: the humor research capital of the world

Environment

Leonardo Da Vinci imagined this instrument, but it never became real until now

Arts, Culture & Media

Iraq War Veteran on Syria: ‘We Stumbled Into a Solution’

Conflict & Justice

Anchor Marco Werman checks in with Iraq War veteran Marc Fisher for his thoughts about Obama’s speech on Syria last night. Fisher thinks the US found a solution to the problem, no matter if it was on purpose or by luck.

Why What’s Funny in China Might Surprise You

Arts, Culture & Media

Nothing translates as badly as humor and the more different the foreign language the less funny the joke it seems. So how can we in the US understand Chinese humor? The World’s Nina Porzucki recently went to China to figure it out.

David Brooks: What Our Words Tell Us

New York Times columnist David Brooks recently wrote that our word choice proves that we’ve become a more individualistic society. Brooks cited Ngram studies which showed that in the last 50 years, words like “self” and “unique” have been on the rise while “community” and “share” have declined. For a big-picture look at the development […]

Big Data and Culturomics

Big Data – and how we use it – is changing the way we understand our culture and history. Research scientists Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean Baptiste Michel (Uncharted: Big Data as Lens on Human Culture) teamed up with Google to create the (highly addictive) Ngram Viewer: it sifts through millions of digitized books and […]

Barbie Berlin Dreamhouse draws protests, hand-wringing over opening

Global Politics

Barbie has a new home in Berlin — and it’s literally life-sized. But the protests have been out-sized as well. The Barbie Berlin Dreamhouse opened on Thursday, but protests have already been intensifying. On one recent day, protesters strapped a Barbie doll to a cross and set the cross on fire. Protesters say Barbie sends the wrong message.