Ghosts in the Machine
Forty years ago, Hollywood made gremlins loveable—portraying them as adorable, furry creatures. Their folkloric origins are far more sinister.
How to Be a British Villain
In classic British detective stories, villains might be atavistic monsters, foreign menaces, or conniving professionals—all tied to aristocrats’ anxieties.
Quebec, Louis Hémon, and Maria Chapdelaine
Louis Hémon’s Maria Chapledaine grew from his views as a French immigrant writer on the rural life of early twentieth-century Quebec.
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.
Carry On, Karaoke
Karaoke became a global phenomenon after its invention in the 1970s, the wide embrace of it exemplifying transnational flows and hybridization.
Verbatim: Fredric Jameson
Marxist cultural critic Fredric Jameson offered a philosophy of late capitalism that gave us a language for talking about globalization and the end of modernism.
Zelda Fitzgerald on F. Scott’s Writing
Zelda’s satirical review of F. Scott's second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, revealed much more than her wit.
Lost Literacies Strips Down the Dawn of Comics
In his new book, literary historian Alex Beringer demonstrates how the birth of the genre of printed comic long preceded the Sunday Funny Pages.
Lee: The Past Ever Haunts the Present
A new film shows how American photographer Lee Miller used the camera to bring the brutalities of World War II to the homefront.
Gae Aulenti: An Independent, International Architect
One of the best-known female architects to come out of Italy, Aulenti found fame with her transformation of a dated Parisian train station into the Musée d’Orsay.