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A Christian cross in an open field, with a sunset in the background.

Jesus Freaks: On the Free Spirited Evangelicals of the 1970s and 80s

Chronicling the emergence of a unique blend of counterculture and Christianity.
by Eliza Griswold via Literary Hub on August 8, 2024
A series of headshots of the members of R.E.M..

Was It Cooler Back Then?

A search for the memory of R.E.M. in Athens, Georgia.
by Benjamin Hedin via Oxford American on December 5, 2023
Performers at the 1963 Renaissance Pleasure Faire. Ron Patterson, a co-founder of the event, appears in orange at the far right.

The Surprisingly Radical Roots of the Renaissance Fair

The first of these festivals debuted in the early 1960s, serving as a prime example of the United States' burgeoning counterculture.
by Gillian Bagwell via Smithsonian on September 28, 2023
Marijuana leaves superimposed over photo of two men.

The Dank Underground

In the late Sixties, countercultural media was distributed by the Underground Press Syndicate and bankrolled by marijuana.
by J. Hoberman via New York Review of Books on May 26, 2023
The women of the Source Family pose on a Rolls-Royce for an ad for the release of a recording of the cult's band, Ya Ho Wha 13.

The Cult Roots of Health Food in America

How the Source Family, a radical 1970s utopian commune, still impacts what we eat today.
by Diana Hubbell via Atlas Obscura on April 19, 2023
Collage of of Stewart Brand peeking out from behind the earth.

Stewart Brand’s Dubious Futurism

What did the creator of the Whole Earth Catalog stand for?
by Malcolm Harris via The Nation on June 13, 2022
Yoko Ono looking pensive.

Yoko Ono’s Art of Defiance

Before she met John Lennon, she was a significant figure in avant-garde circles and had created masterpieces. Did celebrity deprive her of her due as an artist?
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on June 8, 2022
A photo from the 1976 edition of the People's Yellow Pages shows the publication's volunteers assembled before the Vocations for Social Change office in Cambridge

Why The People's Yellow Pages, A Relic Of '70s Counterculture, Still Resonates Today

Fifty years later, The Yellow Pages stand as a testament to grassroots ingenuity and the radical idealism of '70s counterculture.
by Amelia Mason via WBUR on June 28, 2021

Janis Joplin, the Mistaken Icon of the Counterculture

The counterculture dictum to “turn on, tune in, drop out” did not quite capture Janis’s philosophy to “get it while you can.”
by Shalon Van Tine via Tropics of Meta on March 15, 2020
Photo of a large crowd at the Altamont Festival, 1969.

What Happened to Rock and Roll After Altamont?

On the Grateful Dead's “New Speedway Boogie,” and the true end of the Sixties.
by Buzz Poole via Literary Hub on December 6, 2019
People dancing at Woodstock

When Science Was Groovy

Counterculture-inspired research flourished in the Age of Aquarius.
by W. Patrick McCray, David I. Kaiser via Science on August 5, 2019

Aquarius Rising

Considering the religious roots of the 1960s anti-militarist counterculture.
by Jackson Lears via New York Review of Books on September 6, 2018

Boston’s Most Radical TV Show Blew the Minds of a Stoned Generation in 1967

When a Tufts instructor launched the trippy TV show on WGBH, it was unlike anything viewers had ever seen.
by Ryan H. Walsh via Boston Globe on March 1, 2018

The Long Summer of Love

Historians get hip to the lasting influences of ’60s counterculture
by Zoe Corbyn via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 3, 2017
Willie Nelson at the 1973 Fourth of July Picnic, in Dripping Springs.

That ’70s Show

Forty years ago, Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, and a whole host of Texas misfits brought the hippies and rednecks together in outlaw country.
by John Spong via Texas Monthly on January 21, 2013

Locker-Room Liberty

Athletes who helped shape our times and the economic freedom that enabled them.
by Matt Welch via Reason on May 1, 2005
Two bikers ride through the desert in Easy Rider, a 1969 film.

See America First

Two movies, 'Easy Rider' and 'Alice's Restaurant,' reveal the ideals of counterculture and act as vehicles for social commentary.
by Ellen Willis via New York Review of Books on January 2, 1970
Meme of white Gen X voters in their ironic cynicism.

We Care a Lot: White Gen Xers and Political Nihilism

Since the 2024 election, liberals, progressives, and the left has been wringing our collective hands over why Trump won yet again.
by Mindy Clegg via 3 Quarks Daily on December 20, 2024

The World of Tomorrow

When the future arrived, it felt…ordinary. What happened to the glamour of tomorrow?
by Virginia Postrel via Works In Progress on December 5, 2024
Nan Lurie's "Women's House of Detention drawing in Greenwich Village.

How Greenwich Village Became America’s Bohemia

Greenwich Village’s bohemian and queer culture roots lie in its history of incarcerating women, notably via the Women’s Court and House of Detention.
by Hugh Ryan via The Gotham Center on November 20, 2024
"REM" musicians pose in front of a mirror.

How R.E.M. Created Alternative Music

In the cultural wasteland of the Reagan era, they showed that a band could have mass appeal without being cheesy, or nostalgic, or playing hair metal.
by Mark Krotov via The New Yorker on November 13, 2024
Scene from "Smokey and the Bandit" of Burt Reynolds talking on a CB radio.

"A Long Way to Go and a Short Time to Get There"

In the 1970s, trucker films like "Smokey and the Bandit" celebrated rebellious, working-class solidarity and freedom, with complex politics at play.
by Adrian Daub via Dreams in the Which House on November 3, 2024
Photograph of Drag stars: Lady Bunny, Misstress Formika, Sweetie, Anna Conda, Tabboo!

A Nearly Complete Oral History of the Pyramid Club

The Pyramid Club is the stuff of downtown New York legend. In the 1980s, a tiny little dive bar became ground zero for the exploding New York drag scene.
by Michael Musto, Mickey Boardman, Sister Dimension, Linda Simpson, John Kelly, Scott Lifshutz, Steve Buscemi, Lypsinka, Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Billy Beyond via Paper on October 24, 2024
A newspaper clipping with the headline "Norway Makes Skateboarding Against Law"

Skateboarding: From Criminal Offense to Olympic Sport

Skateboarding was considered a silly and childish phenomenon for much of its existence.
by Louis Anslow via Pessimists Archive on July 30, 2024
partner

Alt Text

A brief history of the textfile, and the production of conspiracy theories on the internet.
by Walter J. Scheirer via HNN on May 8, 2024
A newspaper article from the Inner City Voice in Detroit with the headline, "Black Workers Uprising."

Acid Rhythms

A look at the psychedlic-inspired music scene of Detroit.
by William Harris via n+1 on April 10, 2024
A collage of suggestive images of women, a woman holding a camera, and a red letter X.

How Candida Royalle Set Out to Reinvent Porn

As a feminist in the adult-film industry, she believed the answer wasn’t banning porn; it was better porn.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on March 18, 2024
Cover of "The Freaks Came Out to Write"

The City in Its Grip: On Tricia Romano’s “The Freaks Came Out to Write”

Romano’s book is a vital, comprehensive piece of media scholarship about one of the most influential outlets of the last century. It’s also fun as hell to read.
by T. M. Brown via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 15, 2024
"Alien Embrace" repeated artwork

The Institute for Illegal Images

Meditating on blotter not just as art, or as a historical artifact, but as a kind of media, even a “meta medium.”
by Erik Davis via The Paris Review on March 4, 2024
Harry Smith pointing finger upward

Outsider’s Outsider

At once famous and obscure, marginal and central, Harry Smith anticipated and even invented several important elements of Sixties counterculture.
by J. Hoberman via New York Review of Books on February 28, 2024
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