From the poster for Lee

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.
Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872

Did Romans Really Fight Rhinos?

A sports historian explains the truth behind the battle scenes in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.

In the Stereoscope, Another World

Developed in the nineteenth century, the stereoscope gave people a new way of seeing themselves and the world around them.
A collage of jazz albums

How Jazz Albums Visualized a Changing America

In the 1950s, the covers of most jazz records featured abstract designs. By the late 1960s, album aesthetics better reflected the times and the musicians.
An abstract illustration of a soundscape

The “Soundscape” Heard ’Round the World

The rich origins of an everyday word about everyday sound—and why we celebrate composer R. Murray Schafer on World Listening Day.
Drive in movie theater

The Enduring Drive-In Theater

Even as televisions spread across the American landscape, the drive-in movie theater grew in popularity in the years following World War II.
Actor Keanu Reeves poses for a portrait, circa 1990.

How Keanu Reeves Radically Rescripts Race

Reeves’s career showcases his transnational mobility as well as a representational flexibility granted by the melding of races, ethnicities, and cultures.
The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson)

Doctor Who, the Traveling Time Lord

Though they each arrive with an individual sense of humor and fashion, the fifteen Doctors reflect the political and social issues of their respective eras.
María Telón and María Mercedes Coroy in Ixcanul

The Development of Central American Film

A new collection of essays examines the reasons behind the recent boom in feature and documentary film-making from Belize to Panama.
A collage of cover images from Johns Hopkins’ Collection of Middle East-inspired Sheet Music

Sheet Music: the Original Problematic Pop?

A Johns Hopkins University curator of sheet music and pop culture discusses a “Middle East-inspired” sheet-music collection that’s anything but.