E P I S T E M O P H I L I A

The first time I met Ralph Hyde in person was at the old Woolwich Arsenal train station — itself a vaguely panoramic structure, with curv...

One of the more peculiar job titles I've ever had, long before I was a professor, was "Editor of the Eighteenth Century." T...

There's nothing weirder than another country's comics -- a fact that I've known since, at the age of five or six, I first ope...

The invitation was the sort given to important men -- and my great-grandfather-in-law, Mr. Jesse J. John, was such a man. He was a member...

It's not an image of Gandalf you see every day -- but I used to. I bought this poster for my bedroom wall in 1977; when I left the ne...

Seeing that NPR recently published its list of the 'Top 50 Albums' of 2013 , my mind turned to a question asked last year by a fr...

As LED's have become progressively less expensive, the future of indoor lighting looks to be all lit up with them. But back in 1967, ...

It was the first and most important book I never read. Back in first grade, although I was already a big Dr. Seuss fan and could read pic...

Public health campaigns have, it seems, always gone for shock value -- who can forget such ads as the crying Indian , the smoking fetus ,...

Image from the Early Office Museum "Don't you know what duplicates are?" an incredulous Groucho Marx asks brother Chico i...

This steroeview, part of a promotional set offered by the Sears, Roebuck Company to illustrate the plenitude and variety of its store off...

In the annals of non-Indian actors portraying native American Indians in early silent films, Mona Darkfeather (born Josephine Workman) wa...

One might not think about it, but one of the early uses of cinema film was to provide entertainment at many of the large residential psyc...

In the annals of creating manuscript facsimiles with a false (but playful) sense of age, this document has a curious history. In the earl...

In the annals of real and purported "Eskimos" on screen, there may well be no stranger depiction than that given by Asta Nielse...