Culture

The denigration of kitsch betrays a latent anti-Catholicism, one born from centuries of class and ethnic divisions.

How James Baldwin confronted America's most exceptional lie.

How "The Bookman" invented the best seller.

Comedy from Mad Magazine to The Simpsons.

While we're missing three weeks of sporting endeavors due to the Tokyo Olympics, we can revisit one of the most bizarre races in modern Olympic history.

The 1993 song reinvigorated the rap legend’s career — and against all odds became a Hollywood (and police) favorite

When LL Cool J sat for his portrait, he found common ground with the life-long philanthropical endeavors of John D. Rockefeller.

Philip Wylie’s "Generation of Vipers," revisited.

Monsters have always patrolled the margins of the map. By their very strangeness, they determined the boundaries of the regular world.

An insightful exploration of the ways America has read ‘the Great American Novel.’

A post-9/11 veteran novelist explores a post-Vietnam literary soiree gone bad, and finds timeless lessons about a contentious and still-evolving genre.

In the turbulent 1970s, the balm of pop cultural nostalgia set the tone for today's political reaction.

Paper was never simply a writing surface, but a complicated substance that folded itself into the fabric of culture and consciousness.

She's been having a moment — and that's not a good thing. Using baby name data, we found other names that are equally as “Karen” as Karen.

Hunting shirts, backcountry culture, and “playing Indian” in the American Revolution.

Sun Ra, a seminal artist of afrofuturism, embraced a unique vision of blackness.

“We’re the virus.” So read a tweet in March praising reports of less pollution in countries under COVID-19 lockdown. By mid-April, it had nearly 300,000 likes.

Reiner, Stephen Colbert, Jordan Peele, Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Their comedy descends directly from the Works Progress Administration.

Hamilton is an impossibly slippery text. The arguments over the show are part of what make it great.

American fiction of the 19th century often featured a cruel doctor, whose unfeeling fascination with bodily suffering readers found unnerving.

Private bunkers and the people who build them.

"Moonshine" is now a big thing in the liquor biz. But it takes a visit to West Virginia to get a sense of the complex stories in every barrel.

Cartoons have often been considered exempt from the country’s prejudices. In fact, they form a genre built on the marble and mud of racial signification.

The gadget that taught the world to socially distance.

What is the role of artists in a crisis?

Michael Lobel on Confederate memorials and the history of “degenerate art."

An excerpt from a new graphic biography of Jack Kirby, the "King of Comics."

Songs from Public Enemy and Ludacris have been heard at marches, continuing a tradition that dates back to the blues.

Masks have a history associated with disease, status, gender norms, and more.

The author reflects on his own journey with Dylan, and shares some of his favorite pieces of Dylanology.