Culture

“Ride of the Valkyries” has been featured in hundreds of films, including 'The Birth of a Nation,' 'Jarhead,' and most famously, Apocalypse Now.'

Reading the literature of past plagues and suddenly seeing our present reflected in a mirror.

Newly added to Netflix, the Civil War movie reminds the nation that black Americans fought for their own emancipation.

What I relearned (about well-meaning liberalism, race, my late father, and my young gay self) rewatching the TV cop shows of my 1970s youth.

Langston Hughes, "poet laureate of Harlem," dreamed of an America that lived up to its ideals.

How masks became gendered during the 1918–1919 Flu Pandemic.

Since its invention in 1743, roller skating has been tied to Black social movements.

Generations of readers have chosen to emphasize Thoreau's spiritual communion with Nature, but Walden begins with trenchant critique of “progress.”

A new book presents an expansive vision of soul music.

Remembering the woman who outsang Ray Charles.

For Faulkner, all of time existed as a moment, during which all could be changed: past, present, and future.

When most people hear the word “punk,” they think of drug addled, nasty behavior. The truth is, it was driven by a visceral hatred for the president.

Leon Uris's bestselling book "Exodus" portrayed the founding of the state of Israel in terms many Americans could relate to.

The polarized dialogue over Vietnam and the civil rights movement convinced Ginsberg that America was teetering on the precipice of a fall.

If your childhood vision of police is all pet rescues and tinfoil badges, Friendly’s “copaganda” did its job.

On William Gibson, Sonic Youth, and the genesis of the American suburb.

The 1850 novel reveals disturbing continuities between the 19th century cholera pandemics and global health crises today.

The blockbuster "Jaws" (1975) provoked fear by portraying sharks as "mindless eating machines." But what did people think of sharks before then?

The answer may lie in the ear of the beholder.

Dorsey and Thomas amassed important collections at a time when the future of chattel slavery and Black life hung in the balance of a national quarrel.

Tomboys and the endless privileges accorded to white girls.

Scholars agree the song, endowed with its deep history of Black pride, speaks to the universal human condition.

A white man of the Jim Crow South, he couldn’t escape the burden of race, yet derived creative force from it.

"How long can it go on?"

"No one story can completely explain Annie."

We looked at 271 presidential candidate logos from 1968–2020 to find out how race and gender intersect with color choices.

On Juanita Harrison’s "My Great, Wide, Beautiful World."

Native communities in North America have been particularly hard-hit by COVID-19. This isn't the first time.

The denigration of kitsch betrays a latent anti-Catholicism, one born from centuries of class and ethnic divisions.

How James Baldwin confronted America's most exceptional lie.