“In the future, e‑mail will make the written word a thing of the past,” declares the narration of a 1999 television commercial for Orange, the French telecom giant. “In the future, we won’t have to travel; we’ll meet on video. In the future, we won’t need to play in the wind and rain; computer games […]

By the time he filmed this video archived on Iowa Public Television’s YouTube channel, Jim Henson was just about to strike gold with a new children’s show called Sesame Street. The year was 1969, and he already had 15 years of puppetry experience under his belt, from children’s shows to commercials and experimental films. On the cusp […]

Homework has lately become unfashionable, at least according to what I’ve heard from teachers in certain parts of the United States. That may complicate various fairly long-standing educational practices, but it doesn’t necessarily reflect an absolute drop in standards and expectations. Those of us who went to school around the turn of the millennium may […]

Three Yale professors—Timothy Snyder, Jason Stanley and Marci Shore–have spent their careers studying fascism and authoritarianism. They know the signs of emerging authoritarianism when they see it. Now, they’re seeing those signs here in the United States, and they’re not sitting by idly. They’ve moved to the University of Toronto where they can speak freely, […]

On his 84th birthday this past Saturday, Bob Dylan played a show. That was in keeping with not only his still-serious touring schedule, but also his apparently irrepressible instinct to work: on music, on writing, on painting, on sculpture. Even his occasional tweeting draws an appreciative audience every time. The Bob Dylan of 2025 is […]