Lives & Histories Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/lives-histories/ a magazine of ideas, arts, and scholarship Sat, 17 Jan 2026 02:10:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://www.publicbooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/cropped-favicon-2-300x300.png Lives & Histories Archives - Public Books https://www.publicbooks.org/section/lives-histories/ 32 32 “Origine Asiatique”: The Anticolonial and Communist Chinese That Flocked to Paris https://www.publicbooks.org/origine-asiatique-the-anticolonial-communist-chinese-that-flocked-to-paris/ Thu, 06 Mar 2025 16:00:23 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59089 Asian migration has been kept out of most official histories of Paris, but walking in the quartiers chics and populaires/mixtes uncovers a portrait of the lives and history.

The post “Origine Asiatique”: The Anticolonial and Communist Chinese That Flocked to Paris appeared first on Public Books.

]]> A Brief Queer History of Going to Bed with Your Hot Friends https://www.publicbooks.org/a-brief-queer-history-of-going-to-bed-with-your-hot-friends/ Thu, 27 Feb 2025 16:00:18 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=59039 I worried that, in obscure but consequential ways, I had already begun to fail her.

The post A Brief Queer History of Going to Bed with Your Hot Friends appeared first on Public Books.

]]> In Search of Logged Time https://www.publicbooks.org/in-search-of-logged-time/ Tue, 28 Jan 2025 16:00:09 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=58813 When we leave the work of remembering to digital tools, we risk the loss of our histories to technological obsolescence.

The post In Search of Logged Time appeared first on Public Books.

]]> “Parallel Tracks”: Sophie Ratcliffe on Academia, Memoirs, and Motherhood https://www.publicbooks.org/parallel-tracks-sophie-ratcliffe-on-academia-memoirs-and-motherhood/ Fri, 13 Dec 2024 16:00:52 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=58399 “I used to want to experience everything. I don’t anymore.”

The post “Parallel Tracks”: Sophie Ratcliffe on Academia, Memoirs, and Motherhood appeared first on Public Books.

]]> Breaking the Cycle: Laurence Ralph on “Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him” https://www.publicbooks.org/breaking-the-cycle-laurence-ralph-on-sito-an-american-teenager-and-the-city-that-failed-him/ Wed, 30 Oct 2024 15:00:34 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=58085 “My experience with the criminal justice system is wanting to scream, but realizing that you could also find yourself in a more precarious situation if you do that.”

The post Breaking the Cycle: Laurence Ralph on “Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him” appeared first on Public Books.

]]> “I Am the Face of AIDS”: Ryan White and the Politics of Innocence in the History of HIV/AIDS https://www.publicbooks.org/i-am-the-face-of-aids-ryan-white-and-the-politics-of-innocence-in-the-history-of-hiv-aids/ Tue, 22 Oct 2024 15:00:52 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=57897 Ryan White helped challenge existing understandings of the 1980s–1990s AIDS epidemic. But his story also reinforced artificial and arbitrary divisions between the guilty and the innocent.

The post “I Am the Face of AIDS”: Ryan White and the Politics of Innocence in the History of HIV/AIDS appeared first on Public Books.

]]> “She Really Wanted Nothing to Do with It”: Gabriel Brownstein on the Ongoing Question of “Hysteria” https://www.publicbooks.org/she-really-wanted-nothing-to-do-with-it-gabriel-brownstein-on-freud-pappenheim-and-the-ongoing-question-of-hysteria/ Thu, 10 Oct 2024 15:00:48 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=57624 “I really became interested in the part of Freud that we don't know much about, Freud before he became Freud.”

The post “She Really Wanted Nothing to Do with It”: Gabriel Brownstein on the Ongoing Question of “Hysteria” appeared first on Public Books.

]]> “How a Fire Builds”: Talking with Nina St. Pierre about Mental Illness, Art, and Survival https://www.publicbooks.org/how-a-fire-builds-talking-with-nina-st-pierre-on-mental-illness-art-and-survival/ Wed, 02 Oct 2024 15:00:36 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=57415 “In grad school, I’d had this wacky drunken idea that the book had to be meta to be proper.”

The post “How a Fire Builds”: Talking with Nina St. Pierre about Mental Illness, Art, and Survival appeared first on Public Books.

]]> The Author and the Eulogist: On Love and Death in Nonfiction https://www.publicbooks.org/the-author-and-the-eulogist-on-love-and-death-in-nonfiction/ Tue, 30 Jul 2024 15:00:24 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=56874 Authorial responsibility to a real subject—living or dead—is one of art’s unresolved and probably unresolvable ethical questions.

The post The Author and the Eulogist: On Love and Death in Nonfiction appeared first on Public Books.

]]> Rethinking Holocaust Memory after October 7 https://www.publicbooks.org/rethinking-holocaust-memory-after-october-7/ Mon, 15 Jul 2024 15:00:47 +0000 https://www.publicbooks.org/?p=56893 “Why continue to teach the Holocaust? Why continue to build and visit Holocaust memorials and museums?”

The post Rethinking Holocaust Memory after October 7 appeared first on Public Books.

]]>