Culture

The murals at Croatian Catholic Church of St. Nicholas in Millvale do indeed have an implicit politics that was intimately familiar to the congregation.

On the role that medical and health professionals played in raising suspicions of The Twist.

Lionel Trilling defends humanism amid crisis culture, warning that obsessing over evil can erode the self and our capacity for moral and creative agency.

While she always insisted that she wasn’t a ‘real’ critic, Dorothy Parker is more astute than most on matters of style.

Jack Kerouac, Malcolm Cowley, and the difficult birth of "On the Road."

At one time, wearing white after Labor Day was not just considered a fashionable “faux pas,” but a mark of bad manners and bad taste.

Invented in 1922, water-skiing quickly became shorthand for American ideas on beauty, athleticism, and affluence.

As Bruce Springsteen’s "Born to Run" turns 50, its most underrated track deserves some love.

On a new biography of James Baldwin.

How the Boss provided a 50-year-long soundtrack for the last of the Baby Boomers.

A brief history of our most rebellious musical genre, as seen through its DIY zines.

Elbridge Ayer Burbank’s haunting paintings capture a likeness that was only ever real from the vantage point of a White man with a gun, canvas, or camera.

Exploring ropemaking, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Jeremiah N. Reynolds’s wild tale.

Once dismissed as passé, since recast as a secular saint, Baldwin’s true message remains more unsettling than readers in either camp recognize.

Revisit the transformative moment in American culture through the lens of a new book about the 1960s New York avant-garde.

A woman killed by Congress.

Painter William Merritt Chase opened an art school for a new generation of women, teaching them how to draw as well as how to advocate for themselves.

By posting paintings like “American Progress,” the DHS signals its white supremacist beliefs.

How a decision sparked by the death of one of the world’s biggest pop stars knocked the Billboard 200 out of alignment.

On Jean Craighead George’s most famous book, Walden’s legacy, and the dream of togetherness.

The 1893 World’s Fair and the origins of Aunt Jemima.

Correspondence about writing, travel, and friendship, from 1926 through 1929.

A closer look at the character’s history shows that the latest movie is true to his past.

The ’80s I thought I remembered now feel very different to me.

Jaws is a landmark hit, but also a sharp 1970s film shaped by political ire, social critique, and realist cinema’s lasting influence.

A sweeping new history explores facial hair as a proving ground for notions about gender, race, and rebellion.

Despite seeming like strange dance partners, disco and classical make the best music—together.

Art, politics, and revolution intertwined as transatlantic Patriots used wax, paint, and wit to shape the fight for American independence.

Thomas Kinkade’s paintings show conservatives a world they have already won.

Long before the new detention facility in Florida, the reptile has featured in the fantasies of Southern racists.