What Does It Take to Be Crowned Miss Vietnam USA?
Beauty pageants, a familiar part of post-war diasporic Vietnamese culture, help participants and viewers forge new identities amid forces of globalization.
The Indelible Lessons of Erasure
A Percival Everett fan weighs in on the novelist’s approach to racial satire and considers the translation of Erasure to the big screen in American Fiction.
Shortcomings Shows the Loneliness of Refusing to “See” Race
Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel forces the reader to surveil the world through the eyes of its protagonist, Japanese American theater manager Ben Tanaka.
Ride ’em, Butteri!
Long before spaghetti westerns, Italians were turned on to an image of the American West by Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
Maps, Power, and Identity
The Ancient East Asian Maps Collection at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology demonstrates the power held and discursive work done by mapmakers.
The Lost World of Pre-War Malay Cinema
Using the few surviving copies of the 1940s magazine Film Melayu, historian Timothy Barnard chronicles the discourse surrounding the Golden Age of Malay film.
Keep Portland Yearbook Photos Weird
Across thousands of images, Portland State University's yearbooks captured both society's upheaval and the city's cultural metamorphosis.
Freddy Krueger, Folkloric Monster
Many aspects of Freddy Krueger's backstory and actions in A Nightmare on Elm Street echo portrayals of the folkloric bogeyman who targets children.
Bride of Frankenstein
Drawn from the margins of Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, the cinematic Bride of Frankenstein is never just one thing, and she never goes away.