Culture

Two books that remind us that tone and timbre, musical style and sound, matter to history.

Can we appreciate Herman Melville’s work without attributing to it schemes for the uplift of modern man?

Revisiting his first book, "The Enormous Room," a reader can get a sense of everything appealing and appalling in his work.

She left exactly when we need her most.

Dr. Ruth left a legacy of sexual candor and the need to defend pleasure as a universal right—a conversation that is more relevant today than ever.

On defying gender norms and expectations in extreme sports.

Jews in the industry called for the Academy Museum to highlight the men who created the movie business. A voice in my head went, Uh-oh.

How a tragedy in New York City convinced Americans to learn how to swim.

On self-pleasure and sex education in children's literature.

Nine Inch Nails, the Manson Family, and the contradictions of Los Angeles.

Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F spends its final moments on a thrilling cinematic trope of the ’80s, one that I would argue is due for a comeback.

What happens when the automation of music makes it too easy to create and too easy to consume?

The anthology drama provided a venue for discourses on American national identity during the massive cultural, economic, and political changes occurring at midcentury.

Explore science fiction worlds from the last few decades – and what these fictional settings tell us about ourselves.

A statistical analysis of how music composition evolved over time.

On the 50th anniversary of “Chinatown” and the beginning of the end of petromodernity.

Norman Mailer’s generation learned to “write like men.” But their female contemporaries from Mary McCarthy to Diana Trilling pioneered a more enduring style.

How three movies set on the Fourth of July reproduce popular myth, but reveal even more through what they leave unsaid.

A mythical creature that lurks in the pinelands of New Jersey has served as a reminder of the horrors that result when reproductive freedoms are destroyed.

A look at this iconic salad’s origin story and its evolution into a cornerstone of accessible American cooking.

Percival Everett refashions a Mark Twain classic.

Steven Hyden's new book about Bruce Springsteen's iconic "Born in the U.S.A" album is the product of a lifelong passion for the music of "The Boss."

Athletes drank poison, dodged traffic, stole peaches and even hitchhiked during the 24.85-mile race in St. Louis.

On our millennia-long love-hate relationship with getting in the water.

Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland provide an outlet for antiwar soldiers.

How Wilbert Longfellow turned America into a nation of swimmers.

The painting of Mary Ann Tritt Cassell is likely the first known portrait commissioned by an American born into slavery.

The question of villainy has always been a complicated issue for African Americans in film.

Over the centuries, the beloved treat has become an integral part of our national identity.

The Phrygian cap, also known as the liberty cap, emerged as a potent symbol in 18th-century America and France.