Land of the Free, Home of the Bootleggers
When technology made music mobile, the American South changed from one type of bootlegging industry to another: copying and selling records.
From Jamaica to the World: Contextualizing Bob Marley
Bob Marley’s life and music intersected with Pan-Africanism, the Rastafari movement, and post-colonial politics around the globe.
PG-13: Some Material May Be Inappropriate
The creation of the PG-13 rating in 1984 can be traced to a few key films: Poltergeist, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Gremlins.
Combustible Cinema? The Nitrate Film Issue
The early plastic called celluloid was made of nitrocellulose and camphor. It made for spectacular pictures. It also made for spectacular fires.
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.