The Decades of Double Features
For years, the double feature was a dependable part of the movie-goer’s life. Where did it come from, and where did it go?
Annotations: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Scrooge became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.
Carry On, Karaoke
Karaoke became a global phenomenon after its invention in the 1970s, the wide embrace of it exemplifying transnational flows and hybridization.
The Curious History of Competitive Eating
The annals of competitive eating contests are full of more than just hot dogs.
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.
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.
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.
Urban Planning, Then and Now
Humans have been designing cities for millennia. California Forever is just the newest entry in a long list of planned communities around the world.
“A Time To Speak”: Annotated
On September 15, 1963, a bomb killed four Black children in Birmingham, Alabama. Who threw that bomb? Each of us, argued Birmingham lawyer Charles Morgan, Jr.