Culture

When the 1930 Hays Code banned pregnancy in film, birds took over the business of birth.

The closeted right-wing operative has become a tragic character in the American repertory.

Why rock overtook every other genre to define our understanding of America at war.

Gladiator and Gladiator II have little to do with the Roman past. But they have a great deal to do with the American present.

When dancer Loïe Fuller’s spinning garment reflected the stage lights, it took on a life of its own, beguiling those in New York, Berlin, and Paris.

“The Golden Girls” reframed senior life as being about socializing and sex. But did the cultural narrative of advanced age as continued youth go too far?

The actress, screenwriter, and novelist’s reviews and essays from 1918-19 display a comprehensive grasp of movie art and a visionary sense of its future.

A reading list tracing the history of the birth control movement through novels.

The postwar moment of a distinctive new American novel—Nabokov’s "Lolita"— is also the moment in which William Faulkner finally gained recognition.

Fire!! was a pathbreaking showcase for Black artists and writers “ready to emotionally serve a new day and a new generation.”

A critique of colonialism from Martian science fiction.

John Steinbeck based “The Grapes of Wrath” on Sanora Babb’s notes. But she was writing her own American epic.

From white supremacists to black activists, readers have sought moral legitimacy in Milton’s epic poem.

Carson pioneered a new style of late-night hosting—relaxed, improvisatory, risk-averse, and inscrutable.

Celebrating the composer’s 150th birthday, at a festival in Bloomington, Indiana.

In the 1970s, trucker films like "Smokey and the Bandit" celebrated rebellious, working-class solidarity and freedom, with complex politics at play.

The summer sport is facing big questions about how it will adapt.

Jean Strouse explores the relationship between the Anglo-Jewish Wertheimers and John Singer Sargent, who painted twelve portraits of them.

Margaret Fuller and the first major work of American feminism.

The vibes right now are very "Texas Chain Saw Massacre."

From 1942's "Cat People" to cerebral jolts in "Hereditary" and "Get Out," this cinematic scare tactic still shocks.

On Jean Strouse and the art of biography.

Make one of President George Washington's favorite cocktails.

It just might be the great American art form. You can thank the residents of Salem for that.

Walking needs no publicist. The simplest, most accessible form of exercise has been around since humans first foraged and traveled on the ground.

The novelist's aestheticizing impulse contrasts with the relentless seriousness of his observations and critiques of American society.

When video games went mainstream, the Pentagon realized their potential as a promotional tool, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on war-based games.

The legacy of Willie Mays and the Birmingham ballpark where he first made his mark.

The classic creepy story—a driver offers a lift to a stranger who is not of this world—has deep roots and a long reach.

John Steinbeck beat Sanora Babb to the great American Dust Bowl novel—using her field notes. What do we owe her today?