David Albertson, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Conventional stereotypes about romance portray it as a passionate, irrational game. Ancient philosophers, on the other hand, viewed love as something dangerous − but also enlightening.
Snow covers the replica of the Statue of Liberty outside the Decatur County Courthouse in Leon, Iowa.
Joshua Lott/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Young people in China are no longer settling into marriages arranged by their parents. But they are still looking for blessings from Chinese gods to find everlasting love.
Dragons on display in Shanghai. A dragon image is often used to symbolize China itself.
Feng Wei Photography/Moment via Getty Images
According to the Chinese zodiac signs, each year in the lunar cycle is associated with a particular animal. The cycle repeats every 12 years.
These highways displaced many Black communities. Some Black activists are using mapping to do the opposite: highlight hidden parts of history.
Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division
Black activists have long used maps to help illustrate their communities’ history and to document historical injustices.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, center left, performs rituals during the opening of the temple dedicated to Lord Ram in Ayodhya, India, on Jan. 22, 2024.
Press Information Bureau via AP
In recent years, the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism has taken on renewed importance and competing definitions of antisemitism have emerged. What is antisemitism?
Students attend a class at the Averroès school in Lille, France, in September 2023.
Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP via Getty Images
Some of the measures the French government has taken to fight radicalization can do the opposite, three social scientists argue.
Franz Roselbach, a Roma survivor of the Holocaust who was sent to Auschwitz when he was 15, attends a ceremony at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 2006.
Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Shows, movies and day-to-day language promote myths about voodoo that reinforce more than a century of stereotypes and discrimination, writes a scholar of Africana studies.
A ceremony to punish people for heresy, called an ‘auto da fe,’ in the town of San Bartolome Otzolotepec, in present-day Mexico.
Museo Nacional de Arte/Wikimedia Commons
Conversion was often a violent affair, but that doesn’t mean it was 100% successful. Colonial Latin America was home to many different spiritual traditions from Indigenous, African and Asian cultures.
A priest and Catholic worshippers pray in front of an image of ‘Sangre de Cristo,’ burned in a fire on July 2020, at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua.
Oswaldo Rivas/AFP via Getty Images
Kai M. Thaler, University of California, Santa Barbara
When President Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2006, church figures supported him. Violent repression after the 2018 protests has soured the relationship and made clergy targets for intimidation.
The Omari Mosque of Gaza.
Mohammed Alafrangi, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Gaza’s Omari Mosque embodies the history of Gaza – as a site of frequent destruction, but also of renewal, writes a scholar of Islamic architecture and archaeology.
Sunday Assembly is one of the larger secular congregations aiming to provide community and ritual for nonreligious people.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
A sociologist of religion explains how atheist churches are helping people find meaning and community – serving many of the same purposes as religious churches.
In the ‘big tent’ philosophy of free speech, the more views, the better. But how does that hold up in practice?
imageBROKER/Manuel Kamuf via Getty Images
Intellectual humility doesn’t mean anyone can change your mind, a philosopher writes – but it might mean learning from the ‘other side’ in surprising ways.
Pope Francis baptizes 16 infants in the Sistine Chapel on Jan. 7, 2024, in Vatican City.
Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images
Surrogacy can exploit women, but others may choose to be involved for altruistic reasons. A scholar points out that surrogacy’s ethical value is dependent upon the people and systems who use it.
Daoism, which emphasizes harmony with nature, can inform individuals on their relationship with the environment.
Ma Yuan 'Walking on Path in Spring.' National Palace Museum via Wikimedia Commons
A scholar of Daoist rituals explains how the indigenous tradition of China understands the human body as being part of the larger cosmos.
Catarina was revered in Puebla, Mexico – but devotion to her attracted Catholic authorities’ disapproval after her death.
Image from the collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de España
Accounts of Asian American history often stop at the US border, but Asians were living in Latin America for centuries before the Declaration of Independence.
A Lotus Sutra scroll praising the manifold mercies of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
Universal Gateway chapter of the Lotus Sutra/Calligrapher: Sugawara Mitsushige/The Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection
For many Buddhists today, both in East Asia and across the world, the Lotus Sutra offers religious support for various gender identities.
Singers in Lviv, Ukraine, before the traditional Christmas Stars Parade during Orthodox Christmas in January 2023.
Artur Widak/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images