Menu
Idea

popular culture

Back out to culture

activities, experiences, or artistic products that pervade society in a particular time

538
View on Map
Filter by:

Filter by published date

Viewing 391–420 of 538 results. Go to first page
A photograph of John Brown and scraps of his writing.

The Irrevocable Step

John Brown and the historical novel.
by Willis McCumber via The Baffler on May 2, 2022
Person making call in telephone booth.

The Making of the Surveillance State

The public widely opposed wiretapping until the 1970s. What changed?
by Andrew Lanham via The New Republic on April 21, 2022
Photos of children from the cover of "The Crisis," 1916

‘Anxious for a Mayflower’

In "A Nation of Descendants," Francesca Morgan traces the American use and abuse of genealogy from the Daughters of the American Revolution to Roots.
by Caroline Fraser via New York Review of Books on April 21, 2022
Couples dancing at marathon

Dance Marathons

In the early twentieth century, dance marathons were an entire industry—and a surprisingly hazardous business.
by Betsy Golden Kellem, Carol Martin, James T. Farrell via JSTOR Daily on April 21, 2022
John Bubbles dancing and Buck Washington playing keyboard, performing in Brooklyn, New York, 1930.

Never the Same Step Twice

Where previous generations of dancers arranged their steps into tidy, regular phrases, John Bubbles enjambed over bar lines, multiplying, twisting, tilting, turning.
by Brian Seibert via New York Review of Books on April 21, 2022
Photo of Danyel Smith.

Danyel Smith Tells the History of Black Women in Pop Music

The author discusses Whitney Houston, Gladys Knight, racism in magazines, and why she’s so hopeful for the future of music and writing.
by Emily J. Lordi, Danyel Smith via The New Yorker on April 17, 2022
Enemy monsters in first-person shooter game

A History of 'Hup,' The Jump Sound in Every Video Game

You can hear it in your head: the grunt your character makes when hopping a fence or leaping into battle. Its sonic roots trace all the way back to 1973.
by Bryan Menegus via Wired on March 26, 2022
Portrait illustration of Volodymyr Zelensky with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

The Zelensky Myth

Why we should resist hero-worshipping Ukraine’s president.
by David A. Bell via New Statesman on March 24, 2022
Book cover of Whole Earth, featuring an image of Stewart Brand backlit and walking through a door, encircled by the earth.

On Floating Upstream

Markoff’s biography of Stewart Brand notes that Brand’s ability to recognize and cleave to power explains a great deal of his career.
by W. Patrick McCray via Los Angeles Review of Books on March 22, 2022
Left: stacks of The 1619 Project books; right: Daryl Michael Scott.

Grievance History

Historian Daryl Scott weighs in on the 1619 Project and the "possibility that we rend ourselves on the question of race."
by Daryl Michael Scott, Kevin Mahnken via The 74 on March 22, 2022
A packed Betty Crocker test kitchen in 1935, image of women crowded around a counter.

The Unsung Women of the Betty Crocker Test Kitchens

For many Crockettes, the job was glamorous, fulfilling, and "almost subversive."
by Anne Ewbank via Atlas Obscura on March 21, 2022
Glowing icon of an app among cobwebs. Designed by Alex Castro.

Inside The Fight to Save Video Game History

Video game history is lost faster than we can preserve it.
by Ash Parrish via The Verge on March 21, 2022
Odetta sitting on a park bench playing a guitar.

How Odetta Revolutionized Folk Music

She animated the horror and emotional intensity in American labor songs by projecting them like a European opera singer.
by Sasha Frere-Jones via The New Yorker on February 24, 2022
Postcard of Marshall Field & Co.’s Retail Store, Chicago.

Race and Class Identities in Early American Department Stores

Built on the momentum of earlier struggles for justice, the department store movement channeled the power of store workers and consumers to promote black freedom.
by Traci Parker, Phillip Loken via UNC Press Blog on February 23, 2022
Close up of Sidney Poitier in In the Heat of the Night

The Slap That Changed American Film-Making

When Sidney Poitier slapped a white murder suspect on screen, it changed how the stories of Black Americans were portrayed on film.
by Steve Ryfle, Ashawnta Jackson via JSTOR Daily on February 4, 2022
Comic of a boy inside an atom structure while a man looks on.

The Surprising History of the Comic Book

Since their initial popularity during World War II, comic books have always been a medium for American counterculture and for nativism and empire. 
by J. Hoberman via The Nation on January 25, 2022
Test launch of an ICBM, reminiscent of a star with a long tail in the night sky.

“Do You Hear What I Hear” Was Actually About the Cuban Missile Crisis

The holiday favorite is an allegorical prayer for peace.
by Reba A. Wissner via Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on December 22, 2021
Unaccompanied children in a train station

Novel Transport

The anatomy of the “orphan train” genre.
by Kristen Martin via Lapham’s Quarterly on November 1, 2021
Book cover of Pushing Cool, featuring a photo of a cigarette ad on the side of a building.

Selling Menthol: On Keith Wailoo’s “Pushing Cool”

A history of the menthol cigarette and its effects on Black people.
by Vesper North via Los Angeles Review of Books on October 31, 2021
A board game with different continents of the world and markers.

Playing with the Past: Teaching Slavery with Board Games

Board games invite discussions of counterfactuality and contingency, resisting the teleology and determinism that are so common to looking backward in time.
by Patrick Rael via Perspectives on History on October 13, 2021
Photo of Philip Rieff at microphone waiting to speak

The Importance of Repression

Philip Rieff predicted that therapy culture would end in barbarism.
by Park MacDougald via UnHerd on September 29, 2021
CNN studio with monitor in the foreground and anchor at desk in the background.

From TV News Tickers to Homeland: The Ways TV Was Affected By 9/11

There is a long list of ways America was transformed by the terrorist attacks. But the question of how TV itself was changed is more complicated.
by Eric Deggans via NPR on September 10, 2021
Drawing of Stranger Things main characters on bikes

Historicizing Dystopia: Suburban Fantastic Media and White Millennial Childhood

On the nostalgic and technophobic motives of the recent boom in suburban fantastic media.
by Angus McFadzean via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 30, 2021
Chester Higgins photo of man looking out the window of a cafe on to the early morning street

Chester Higgins’s Life in Pictures

All along the way, his eye is trained on moments of calm, locating an inherent grace, style, and sublime beauty in the Black everyday.
by Jordan Coley via The New Yorker on August 27, 2021
Oscar Wilde

How Oscar Wilde Won Over the American Press

When the U.S. first encountered the “Aesthetic Apostle."
by Nicholas Frankel via Literary Hub on July 19, 2021
A diagram of the phases of the Moon.

Man-Bat and Raven: Poe on the Moon

A new book recovers the reputation Poe had in his own lifetime of being a cross between a science writer, a poet, and a man of letters.
by Mike Jay via London Review of Books on June 24, 2021
Bob Dylan singing

Bob Dylan, Historian

In the six decades of his career, Bob Dylan has mined America’s past for images, characters, and events that speak to the nation’s turbulent present.
by Sean Wilentz via New York Review of Books on June 19, 2021
Lady with black hair tied up in a bun

Dickinson’s Improvisations

A new edition of Emily Dickinson’s Master letters highlights what remains blazingly intense and mysterious in her work.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on June 12, 2021
A black and white photograph of a person playing the guitar.

My Father, Cultural Appropriator

The daughter of Buddy Holly's bandmate reflects on the defensiveness some white people have about the roots of rock 'n' roll.
by Sarah Curtis via Los Angeles Review of Books on June 5, 2021
Black and white photo of roller skaters in Central Park.

The Great New York City Roller-Skating Boom

In 1980, the whole city seemed to be on skates. I’m not sure why.
by Nick Paumgarten via The New Yorker on May 1, 2021
View More
30 of
538

Filter Results:

Suggested Filters:

Idea

Person

brought to you by
© Bunk History