Recent Stories

When Witches Take Flight

I was quickly surprised to find that flight — a defining feature of the modern image of the witch — figured relatively little in the earliest medieval sources.

Man of Smoke

“I was trying to write the life of a man who had no life. What other options did I have?”

History Now: Sarah Stoller

Seven years into my grad program at Berkeley, seven months into my pregnancy, and three weeks into the statewide lockdown, I filed my dissertation.

Moong Dal Bhajias from Meher’s Mum

Meher Mirza’s piece on the Time & Talents cookbook was one of our first pieces here at Contingent. As a special treat for our members, she’s given us this memory of a special dish along with the recipe itself, complete with her mother’s annotations.

Oscar’s Hill

A decades-long quest, bordering on obsession, leads one man to a small village in the Sierra Juarez—and, perhaps, to the Hill of the Jaguar.

Oscar’s Hill, Part 1

One day, in the Mitla library, Oscar Martínez Galindo came across a book that would change his life forever.

Stumbling Stones

Somewhat to my surprise, I didn’t go to my field’s major conference last November. Instead I accompanied a 97-year-old man to the town he fled in 1938.

guys (etc)

I had never seen a mustache like that before—so blond and full and pin-neat, as it had to be for the power company.

From A Certain Point Of View

By denying access to the original cuts of the saga films, George Lucas has left us without the critical cultural documents needed for understanding the franchise’s power.

Story-Shaped Things

Historians tell stories about the past. This philosopher thinks those stories are often wrong–and dangerous.

Archiving Danville

The mental institution had a lot of old volumes stored in a conference room, but they were behind locked cabinet doors and no one knew exactly what was there.

No Refuge

When Congress gave the Secretary of Labor discretion over any immigrant “likely to become a public charge,” they weren’t expecting someone like Frances Perkins.