Topic’s January 2019 Issue, “Frontiers”

Issue No. 19Frontiers16 Stories

Illustration

Giant Mirrors. Ocean Whitening. Here’s How Exxon Wanted to Save the Planet

In 1997, scientists working for the oil company offered visionary solutions for climate change—which might have destroyed the earth in the process.

Photography

The Instagram Influencers of Crown Heights

For many Orthodox Jews, technology is something to be shunned. But in Brooklyn’s Chabad Lubavitcher community, women use social media to celebrate what it means to be #hasidic.

Photography

The Future of Frats Is Female

Greek life has never been more popular, or troubled, than it is today. Could admitting women change the nature of fraternities for the better?

Photography

Visions of the Afterlife

For the mediums of the Lily Dale spiritualist community, the frontier between the living and the dead is easily entered. The only difference is how they open the door.

Video

4 Episodes

Looking Across the Border

Four migrant children, forced to wait with their families in a camp in Tijuana, Mexico, dream of what might await them in the United States.

Feature

Failure to Launch

Experts have been anticipating commercial space travel since the late 1970s. What would it take to get this insanely priced industry off the ground?

Illustration

About the Cover: Frontiers

The Victorian astronomers and 1980s set designers who inspired Topic’s January 2019 cover artist to shoot for the stars.

Topic Newsletters: Frontiers

Feature

The Other Side of the Divide

An interview with Jordi Ruiz Cirera, creator of the documentary series Looking Across the Border, about what it was like to interview migrant children in Tijuana.

Feature