Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys

From La Jetée to Twelve Monkeys to COVID-19

If the pandemic has you wishing for yesteryear, watching 12 Monkeys—and the time travel art film that inspired it—is just the thing.
Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison’s Operatic Life

Toni Morrison was renowned for the musicality of her prose, so writing lyrics for classical music wasn't a huge stretch.
Taylor Swift at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards

The Linguistic Evolution of Taylor Swift

If Taylor Swift shifts her accent in her transition from country to pop, does she lose the personal authenticity important to country music?
Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.24738828

The Wellcome Collection—Perfect Medicine for the Incurably Curious

Pharmacy genius, Henry Solomon Wellcome amassed a lot of knowledge—and amazing tchotchkes too.
The cover of Exodus by Leon Uris

How Americans Were Taught to Understand Israel

Leon Uris's bestselling book Exodus portrayed the founding of the state of Israel in terms many Americans could relate to.
Annie Oakley

How Annie Oakley Defined the Cinema Cowgirl

“Little Sure Shot” was famous for her precision, athleticism, and trademark femininity.
Close-up of an eye from the cover of Camu's The Plague

Resistance through Silence in Camus’s The Plague

"On this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it’s up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences."
Silhouette of office lady using smartphone in city

Fake News: A Media Literacy Reading List

Compiled by graduate students in a 2016 course on “Activism and Digital Culture,” at University of Southern California.
The Beatles performing in 1961

The Beatles Got Started in Hamburg. There’s a Reason for That.

The Beatles first played Hamburg's pleasure zone in 1960, in a former strip club near the infamous Reeperbahn.
The title card from an episode of Black Journal

Black Journal and Liberatory Television

Underrepresented in the country's newsrooms, Black journalists found an outlet on public affairs shows like Black Journal.