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The Mehra Menu: North of Everything: Vikings, Soviets, and the New Nordic Table
Outside Reykjavik, the mark of a true baker is all in their rye bread. With nothing but a hole in the ground and geothermal heat, bakers still bake rye bread using their ancestors’ culinary…
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Bolívar, Márquez, and the Machine
This piece is a shortened adaptation of “A Fictional Bolívar, Quantified: Distantly Reading Gabriel García Márquez’s The General in His Labyrinth,” the author’s final project for History 264: Latin American Wars of Independence, taught…
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The Mehra Menu: NYC, Unmelted: The World’s Cuisine, One Borough at a Time
New York has a distinct, poignant flavor that engages all five senses. The city doesn’t so much welcome you as absorb you. One block you’re standing under the glass towers of Wall Street, watching…
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Food and Loathing in Nashville
Two skeptics search for the soul of Nashville by way of its most famous dish. Reported in Nashville, May 2026. I. Cara Eaton If you’re not a fan of country music, and we’re not, you’ll find yourself unmoored in Nashville with no raison d’être—swallowed by booming live music reverberating…
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An Exploration of the Original Public Meaning of the Domestic (Presidential) Emoluments Clause
Professor Tillman is an Associate Professor at the Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology in County Kildare, Ireland. He is a widely quoted authority on American constitutional law and legal history, and he is the author or co-author of numerous academic and popular articles, as well as amicus briefs. Today, he joins us to discuss his recently filed amicus brief in Sistrunk Seeds, Inc. v. Trump, a case seeking to resolve claims under the U.S. Constitution’s Domestic (Presidential) Emoluments Clause, being heard in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. (Interview conducted and transcribed by Maclain…
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Why You Should NOT Care About Brazilian Presidential Elections
Bowl of traditional açaí with sliced bananas, seasonal berries, and honey drizzle. This is my açaí order every week at It’s Thyme. Every Friday, as a first-year Brazilian, I have a personal custom of forgoing Marketplace dinner to use my equivalency on açaí. I pay around $11.78, plus $0.90 in fees, so I need to swipe my DukeCard twice—the first swipe is free, and the second charges an extra dollar in food points. Açaí first hit the world stage in the 2000s. Coming straight from the capital of the Brazilian Amazon, açaí made its way to California, riding alongside a…
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Manchesterism: Burnham’s Big Gamble for Growth
Britain’s slowdown in productivity growth has plagued the country for as long as I can remember. There are many factors to blame. The 2008 financial crisis, the resulting austerity measures, low investment, the dreaded Brexit, and, of course, COVID-19. Add in ten turbulent years of six different prime ministers and a disastrous Truss mini-budget, and it’s no wonder investors are timid and we are stuck in a rut. Housing is in crisis. Years of weak wage growth have left households exposed to the rising cost of living. In 2025, 12.8% of graduates aged 21 to 24 were not in education,…
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America 250: A Sneak Peek
The Lemur‘s America 250-themed print issue is due to hit shelves soon. Before then, we thought we’d give devoted Lemur readers—who have stuck with us after the past couple of dry posting months—a sneak peek at what we’ve been working on this semester. The following are 250-word articles on overlooked, underappreciated, or unique moments in American history. So far, America 250 culture has been disappointing, ranging from predictable political appropriation to anodyne reflections on Bunker Hill and the “arc of the moral universe.” At The Lemur, we went in a different direction: starting not from the premise that our country…
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