Culture

A new biography of an elusive comic talent.

You have two ears for a reason.

Her new book tells the story of Black people through an exploration of the color blue.

The harrowing and heroic life of Marianne Faithfull, cheater of a thousand deaths and music history’s true avenging angel.

On folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, who passed away sixty-five years ago today.

On Pierrepoint B. Noyes, H.G. Wells, and the “Superweapons” of early science-fiction.

Levity and play — eerily combined with anxiety, terror, and deadly violence — shaped the identity and image of Early Republic militias.

Elon Musk’s defenders were quick to claim that his hand motion was actually an ancient “Roman salute” — but that gesture never existed.

Dinner parties in the capital have long been a path to power, but Perle Mesta had her eye on a different prize.

In the late 1960s, in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, jazz legends were playing the best music you’ve never heard.

Rap beef is form of capitalist accumulation that enriches artists—and, most of all, the corporate suits that run their record labels.

Which public figures impacted baby naming trends?

On Jazz Age gay culture and its backlash.

When Barney's is selling Black Sabbath shirts for $175, does it change the cultural credibility of your favorite vintage band tee?

A digital annotated bibliography and multimedia archive about Black women country blues guitarists.

Humans love to imagine their own demise.

At 50, the game is more popular than ever, but its core appeal is still a great secret.

While America was fighting on the ground, the Federation was fighting in space.

Marking the centenary of the creator of “The Twilight Zone,” who knew that dystopia was always over the nearest ridge.

The Bob Dylan film forefronts a conflict between acoustic and electric music, while ignoring how the Vietnam War divided folk musicians.

What kind of Christmas did we used to know? To hear some critics and historians tell it, the holiday used to be a lot more religious than it is now.

On two new books that critique identity politics and seek a new vision of political culture.

While modern women poets have found inspiration, collard references appeared in racist limericks during Jim Crow.

Bob Dylan decided he wanted to subvert the expectations of his fans – and rebel against industry forces intent on pigeonholing him and his work.

Since the 2024 election, liberals, progressives, and the left has been wringing our collective hands over why Trump won yet again.

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

On the medallic art of the Gilded Age.

Ed Hardy's historic tattoo parlor is closing. A lot more than that stands to be lost.

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.