Pilgrims
In one of the oldest chapters of American history—the Pilgrims’ flight from persecution—historian Jeremy Bangs, X’67, finds new ground to cover.
Campus architecture
New construction is about the exchange of ideas—within and beyond the campus. The University architect explains the theory behind the practice.
Playing with fire
To approach religion with intellectual rigor, says Divinity School dean Margaret Mitchell, AM’82, PhD’89, is to play with fire. She stokes the embers.
Dark energy
Astrophysicist Josh Frieman, PhD’89, works on the dark side, studying the night sky for insight into the accelerating expansion of the universe.
Favorite things
Keepers of University collections reveal the pieces closest to their hearts.
Social survey
For 40 years, the General Social Survey has cultivated a vast body of knowledge about Americans’ personal attitudes and opinions. Plus: “Survey Says.”
Carrie reborn
Kimberly Peirce, AB’90, revives the pop culture classic.
Point spread
Charles K. McNeil, PhB’25, was the point man in sports gambling.
Foster families
Davida Williams, AM’82, helps foster families navigate trauma and find trust.
Top shelf
They were the best of spines.
Friendly skies
American stewardesses and the making of an iconic advertising campaign.
Alumni Weekend
Scenes from a verdant and varied Alumni Weekend.
Jewel Lafontant
Jewel C. Stradford Lafontant, JD’46, was a lawyer and public servant who broke many barriers.
Campus talks
Spring quarter, like any other, offered an encyclopedia of public talks on campus, illuminating topics art historical, zoological, and everything in between. At 11 of these talks, the Magazine staff were there.
Butterfly genetics
Marcus Kronforst finds clues to evolutionary adaptation in butterfly wings.
Love in wartime
Researching her mother’s story of wartime flight and lost love, journalist Leslie Maitland, AB’71, finds the truth richer and stranger than any fiction. Plus: “Internal Investigation.”
Wine
Wine writer and restaurant critic Bill St. John, AM’77, AM’80, PhD’83, talks fear of wine and the scourge of ratings. Plus: “An embarrassment of riches.”
A Russian story
William Browder, AB’85, was once the biggest capitalist in Russia. After his lawyer was tortured and died in jail, he became one of the Kremlin’s fiercest enemies.
Hamlet and the law
A justice, a judge, a philosopher, and an English professor.
Hubble spacescapes
Part of a visual tradition that reaches back to Romanticism, images from the Hubble Space Telescope awe as they inform. Plus: “Scope of Inquiry.”
Mexico City
On walks across Mexico City, historian Mauricio Tenorio Trillo finds a path to the past.
Grave concerns
An alumna mortician, medievalist, and video sage tries to change the way Americans think about death.
Indian art
The Sahmat collective galvanizes artists across India to create work that resists divisive politics. A Smart Museum exhibition tells its story.
Gertrude Himmelfarb
Social critic and Victorian historian Gertrude Himmelfarb, AM’44, PhD’50, looks back on her Chicago education.
Vaccine testing
The road to safe, reliable bioweapon vaccines for children is fraught with ethical peril. On campus last fall, experts began to plot it out. Plus—The Soul of Medicine: For ethicist and doctor Daniel Sulmasy, medical progress is about more than the body.
Austria to Pakistan
In 1956, two new PhDs drove a Land Rover from Austria to India to begin the research that would be their life’s work. Notes from their journey.
Book covers
Isaac Tobin’s designs for University of Chicago Press books provoke readers to take a deeper look.
Light
Exploring the attributes of low light, an architect and a physicist try to cultivate a dim awareness.
Benjamin Mays
Benjamin Elijah Mays, AM’25, PhD’35, was the conscience of the civil rights movement.
Bird by bird
An Oriental Institute Museum exhibit traces the ubiquity of birds in ancient Egyptian culture to geographical accident, avian behavior, and human fascination.
Dean Boyer’s new term
With a historian’s attention to the founding ideals of the College, Dean John W. Boyer, AM’69, PhD’75, implements an ambitious vision for the decades to come.
Personal art history
Peter Selz, AM’49, PhD’54, looks back on a life in modern art through the works that most inspired him.
National Women’s Hall of Fame
A corporate career led Beverly Ryder, MBA’74, to the board of the National Women’s Hall of Fame and back to the public schools in her hometown of Los Angeles.
Malaria
Every year malaria infects hundreds of millions around the globe. Geneticist Thomas Wellems, PhD’80, MD’81, tries to stay one step ahead of the parasite. Plus: An interview with malaria-exhibit photographer Adam Nadel, AB’90.
Faces of the Logan Center
Onward and upward with the arts: a glimpse into the inner workings of the towering new facility south of the Midway.
Presidential power
Presidents since FDR have extended their reach beyond constitutional boundaries, raising fears of a dictatorial executive branch that the Law School’s Eric Posner dismisses as “tyrannophobia.”
Patsy Mink
Patsy Mink, JD’51, was a tenacious and determined politician.
Girl Scouts chief of staff
New Girl Scout chief of staff Nhadine Leung, AB’90, bleeds green.