Jeffrey S. Gurock is a professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University in New York City. He has written several books on American Jewish history and is an expert on American Jews who served in World War II.

Read a May 3, 2013, story at Slate about emerging technologies that could give people enhanced abilities. It asks: “If humans become superhuman, will we turn out to be superheroes — or supervillains?”

In his review of Iron Man 3 in The New Yorker (subscription required for full version), critic Anthony Lane also explores the relationship between the film’s violence and the bombing in Boston.

Read The New York Times’ review of Iron Man 3.

Sylvia Barack Fishman is a professor of contemporary Jewish life at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and co-director of the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, which focuses on women in contemporary Judaism. She is the author of numerous books, including Jewish Life and American Culture (SUNY Series in American Jewish Society in the 1990s) and The Way Into the Varieties […]

Collin Garbarino, a blogger who often writes about religion and popular culture, wrote a positive review of Iron Man 3 titled “Iron Man Grows Up,” in which he sees hero Tony Stark as more mature and appealing. Garbarino also penned a defense of the superhero genre in 2012, arguing that it represents a useful mythology that, unlike the ancients, […]

The Association of Welcoming & Affirming Baptists (AWAB) is a group of congregations, organizations and individual Baptists that support the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Baptist faith.

Allan L. Nadler is director of Jewish studies at Drew University in New Jersey. He was trained as an Orthodox rabbi but is now unaffiliated and writes and comments extensively on Orthodox Jewish life.

Samuel C. Heilman is a sociologist at the City University of New York in New York City. He is the author of Sliding to the Right: The Contest for the Future of American Jewish Orthodoxy, which argues that the ultra-Orthodox are gaining the upper hand over the Modern Orthodox. He is also co-editor of the annual periodical Contemporary Jewry, […]