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Painting of a couple kissing under a broomstick

Broomstick Weddings and the History of the Atlantic World

From Kentucky to Wales and all across the Atlantic, the enslaved and downtrodden got married – by leaping over a broom. Why?

How Aztecs Told History

For the warriors and wanderers who became the Aztec people, truth was not singular and history was braided from many voices.

The Defender of Differences

Three new books consider the life, and impact, of Franz Boas, the "father of American cultural anthropology."

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.”
The cover of Cynthia A. Kierner's "Inventing Disaster," which depicts a shipwreck during a storm.

On Inventing Disaster

The culture of calamity from the Jamestown Colony to the Johnstown Flood.
African-American cowboys in Bonham, Texas, circa 1913

The Real Texas

What is Texas? Should we even think about so large and diverse a place as having an essence that can be distilled?

Reading in an Age of Catastrophe

A review of George Hutchinson's "Facing the Abyss: American Literature and Culture in the 1940s."
Places of origin for early Eastern Mediterranean immigrants. The dot size reflects the relative number of immigrants.

“Like A Wolf Who Fell Upon Sheep”: Early Lebanese Immigrants and Religion in America

For some Lebanese immigrants, religion was a comfort, providing a sense of home in an new world. For others, it was a constant reminder of what was left behind.

Here Is a Human Being

The Spotify and Ancestry partnership proposes to entertain users based on the narrowest possible conception of who they are.

How the Midlife Crisis Came to Be 

The midlife crisis went from an obscure psychological theory to a ubiquitous phenomenon.
Farmers haying.

Remembering the ‘Spooky Wisdom’ of Our Agrarian Past

For millennia, humans have followed specific patterns passed down by their forbears without always knowing why.
A painting entitled "The First Thanksgiving, 1621" by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (ca. 1932).

The Dark Side of Nice

American niceness is the absolute worst thing to ever happen in human history.

Why Irish America Is Not Evergreen

Thanks to federal immigration policies, immigration from Ireland has all but dried up.
Book cover of "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia."

Appalachia Isn’t Trump Country

A region that outsiders love to imagine but can’t seem to understand.

What Makes Jewish Comedy Jewish?

In the latter half of the twentieth century, American comedy just was Jewish comedy, tamped down to appease audiences.
Still from Dirty Dancing.

In the Dark All Katz Are Grey: Notes on Jewish Nostalgia

Searching for where I belong, I find myself cobbling together a mongrel Judaism—half-remembered and contradictory and all mine.

What Cheer, Though?

Joyce Chaplin on the malevolence of American goodwill.

The Mythical Whiteness of Trump Country

"Hillbilly Elegy" has been used to explain the 2016 election, but its logic is rooted in a dangerous myth about race in Appalachia.
Illustration of Elvis Presley and Big Mama Thornton

The Question of Cultural Appropriation

It’s more helpful to think about exploitation and disrespect than to define cultural “ownership.”

How America’s Obsession With Hula Girls Almost Wrecked Hawai’i

Popularized images of female hula dancers have deviated far from their origins and perpetuated stereotypes.
Kids and adults free dancing.

Camille A. Brown: A Visual History of Social Dance in 25 Moves

Why do we dance? African-American social dances started as a way for enslaved Africans to keep cultural traditions alive and retain a sense of inner freedom.
Engraving of Hawaiian high chief Ka‘iana

When Hawaii Was Ruled by Shark-Like Gods

19th century Hawai‘i attracted traders, entrepreneurs, and capitalists, who displaced, a flourishing and elaborate culture.
"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.
Crowded and brightly-lit Beale Street in Memphis.

Memphis: The Roots of Rock in the Land of the Mississippians

Rising on the lands of an ancient agricultural system, Memphis has a long history of negotiating social conflict and change while singing the blues.
A car in a dark night on an empty road with a ghostly apparition.

The Vanishing Hitchhiker Legend Is an Ancient Tale That Keeps Evolving

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.
Uncle Sam gestureing "Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil,"

How the US Military Ditched Merit

A military consumed by identity politics threatens the integrity of the republic.
Cover of American Scary by Jeremy Dauber.

The Historical Seeds of Horror in "American Scary"

Jeremy Dauber's new book explores the themes and origins of the American horror genre.
A screenshot from "Red Dead Redemption 2" of cowboy protagonist Arthur Morgan riding a horse in a western landscape.

What Red Dead Redemption II Reveals About Our Myths of the American West

On the making of a centuries-old obsession at the heart of American national identity.
Alain Locke.

A Century of Cultural Pluralism

How an unlikely American friendship should inspire diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano, Madonna and Child with Saint Jerome and Saint John the Baptist, ca 1492–95

How Renaissance Art Found Its Way to American Museums

We take for granted the Titians and Botticellis that hang in galleries across the U.S., little aware how and why they were acquired.

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