Arts

In the fall of 2022, a German court heard an unusual case. It was a civil lawsuit that grew out of a feud on Twitter about whether transgender people were victims of the Holocaust. Though there is no longer much debate about…

How can neighborhoods gentrify without erasing their heart and voice? It’s an important question to ask now, I’d suggest, since many communities across the U.S. are at risk of losing their historical identities as new people and businesses move in, displacing residents…

To many people, the image of a nuclear family in a stand-alone house with a green lawn and white picket fence still represents a fulfillment of the American dream. However, this ideal is relatively new within a broader history of housing and…

In the 2018 song “Boss Life,” the rapper Offset, part of the multiplatinum-selling rap group Migos, rhymed: “I do not vibe with queers.” Such casual use of a perceived anti-gay slur is not uncommon in the history of hip-hop. But the discussion…

As a Latino literature and media scholar, a lifelong gamer and a Guatemalan-American girl whose dad read her comics every night, I quickly became a fan and then scholar of Miles Morales, the Afro-Puerto Rican Spider-Man who first appeared in comic book…

HBO’s “Succession” delivered its grand finale on May 28, 2023 – the climax of four award-packed seasons of searing put-downs, nihilistic humor and desperate power plays. The show tells the story of ailing media tycoon Logan Roy and his four horrid children…

Growing up in a small town in Brazil, my daily life was shaped by the rhythms of my family’s working hours. My father has been a night shift worker for over three decades at a local factory. We got used to silent…

Biden is old. Trump has weird hair. Biden mangles the English language. Trump barely seems to understand it. There’s no question that it is easy to make fun of the two top presidential candidates for 2024. But as I explain in my…

Henry Darger worked as a hospital custodian. After his death in 1973, hundreds of his illustrations were discovered. Brooklyn Taxidermy/flickr, CC BY Vernacular art is a genre of visual art made by artists who are usually self-taught. They tend to work outside…

The Supreme Court has made it more difficult to quote from existing imagery, music and text, and harder to critique society by borrowing and amplifying others’ works. The 7-2 majority opinion in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith…

Barbara Kingsolver’s literary honors range from the National Book Prize of South Africa to the PEN/Faulkner Award. On May 8, 2023, she added a Pulitzer Prize to her accolades. Her winning novel, “Demon Copperhead,” is more than just a reimagining of Charles…

South Korea finds itself embroiled in an all-out gender war – and it keeps getting worse. The animosity between Korean men and women has reached a point where some women are outright refusing to date, marry and have kids with men –…

The term “Luddite” emerged in early 1800s England. At the time there was a thriving textile industry that depended on manual knitting frames and a skilled workforce to create cloth and garments out of cotton and wool. But as the Industrial Revolution…

Editor’s note: This article contains plot spoilers. Society’s understanding of technology and cybersecurity often is based on simple stereotypes and sensational portrayals in the entertainment media. I’ve written about how certain scenarios are entertaining but misleading. Think of black-clad teenage hackers prowling…

In hip-hop music, it sometimes seems as if songs to and about mothers are common enough that audiences might take them for granted. As someone who studies hip-hop and how it shapes and is shaped by society and culture, I don’t believe…

When the The New York Times and The Boston Globe recently published exposés in which employees of award-winning chef Barbara Lynch described their abusive work environments, we weren’t surprised. Anyone who has spent years working in restaurants probably wouldn’t be surprised, either.…

Why can’t you stop watching TV shows, movies or viral videos that make you cringe? Cringe is the feeling you get when your boss cracks a joke in a meeting and no one laughs. It’s when your kid shoots a soccer ball…

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com. What is that voice in your head when you read? – Luiza, age 14, Goiânia, Brazil When…

The current Hollywood writers strike has drawn international attention to the plight of TV and film writers in the streaming era. Much has been made of television’s golden age, during which streaming platforms have offered audiences an abundance of well-written, highly produced…

In a widely quoted New York Times column, the paper of record called his TV program “an electronic peepshow.” The Times’ media critic, Jack Gould, accused him of “making a commercial virtue of cheap sensationalism” and exploiting the worst in human behavior,…

Since Jerry Springer’s death on April 27, 2023, writers have been working through the cultural significance of his eponymous daytime talk show. For 27 years, Springer’s circus of sensationalism was a remarkably durable and bankable commodity. Helping to normalize outrageousness in culture,…

It turns out that pop stars Drake and The Weeknd didn’t suddenly drop a new track that went viral on TikTok and YouTube in April 2023. The photograph that won an international photography competition that same month wasn’t a real photograph. And…

The film “Air,” which tells the story of Nike’s signing of Michael Jordan, isn’t actually about Michael Jordan at all. It’s about the beauty of design and the seduction of marketing. It’s about power suits, purple Porsches and Rolexes. It’s about white…

On April 17, 2023, the Nebraska Cornhuskers unveiled the latest version of their beloved mascot, Herbie Husker. Herbie’s left hand no longer forms the “OK” symbol. Instead, an index finger is raised to indicate that the team is No. 1. The change…