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You Had to Be There

Whose side is the war correspondent on?
Scene from "Smokey and the Bandit" of Burt Reynolds talking on a CB radio.

"A Long Way to Go and a Short Time to Get There"

In the 1970s, trucker films like "Smokey and the Bandit" celebrated rebellious, working-class solidarity and freedom, with complex politics at play.
A drawing of a skeletal hand erupting from the ground and separating a house with a Harris/Walz sign and a house with a Trump/Vance sign. Face masks float in the wind.

There’s a Very Specific Issue Haunting This Election. No One Is Talking About It.

You can bury it. But you can’t escape it.
Illustration of a faceless Virgin Mary and Elizabeth, holding sonograms of the unborn Christ and John the Baptist.

How an American Film in 1984 Shaped the ‘Fetal Personhood’ Movement

The success of the movie ‘The Silent Scream,’ made by onetime abortionist Bernard Nathanson, continues to influence the pro-life narrative.
Paintings by John Singer Sargent: Asher Wertheimer, 1898 (left) and Hylda, Almina and Conway, Children of Asher Wertheimer, 1905 (center), London. Portrait of Mrs. Asher B. Wertheimer, 1898 (right).

A Sudden, Revealing Searchlight

On Jean Strouse and the art of biography.
A still from the Apprentice of Sebastian Stan as Donald Trump and Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn inside a car.

The Apprenticeship of Donald Trump

A new film examines Trump's formative years under the tutelage of Roy Cohn.
Soldiers in combat gear stand by an advertisement for "America's Army," a military strategy game from 2002.

Video Games Are a Key Battleground in the Propaganda War

When video games went mainstream, the Pentagon realized their potential as a promotional tool, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on war-based games.
Sketch of Joan of Arc on horseback, flanked by knights.
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The Bowl Truth

On Joan of Arc’s much-maligned and forgotten haircut.
Political cartoon of clothed animals and Anthony Comstock bathing clothed, and cowering at underwear in a store window.

The History and Legacy of Anthony Comstock and the Comstock Laws

As the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 proposes to revive the Comstock Act, this seven-part forum explores the Act’s influence on American life.
"Winter Scene in Brooklyn," 1820 painting by Francis Guy.

How Brooklyn’s Earliest Black Residents Found Empowerment and Solidarity in Their Diverse Community

The little known history of 19th-century New York City.
National Book Award seal.

How Historical Fiction Redefined the Literary Canon

In contemporary publishing, novels fixated on the past rather than the present have garnered the most attention and prestige.
Jazz album covers.
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How Jazz Albums Visualized a Changing America

In the 1950s, the covers of most jazz records featured abstract designs. By the late 1960s, album aesthetics better reflected the times and the musicians.
John Andrew Jackson riding a galloping horse and tipping his hat.
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How Do We Tell a Tale of People Who Sought to Disappear?

The life of John Andrew Jackson — and the vacillating richness and scarcity of the archive.
Still from Midnight Cowboy of a man with a gun in Times Square.

How the Movies Captured Times Square’s Grimy Golden Age

Times Square’s decline can be dated to the Depression, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that the bottom fell out.
Drawing of a classic pirate figure, wtih an earring, a tricorn hat, and a satchel, yelling orders at a crew while a ship burns in the background

Were Pirates Foes of the Modern Order—or Its Secret Sharers?

We’ve long viewed them as liberty-loving rebels. But it’s time to take off the eye patch.
Four Black Marvel villains.

Marvel's Black Villain Era

The question of villainy has always been a complicated issue for African Americans in film.
Syntactic trees filled with words and numbers.

American Grammar: Diagraming Sentences in the 19th Century

A pre-history of the sentence diagrams that were once commonplace in the American classroom.
A painting of a crowd of people heading through gates labeled Chicago, New York, and St. Louis.

Fog From Harlem: Recovering a New Negro Renaissance in the American Midwest

How the focus on Harlem obfuscated Black culture in the Midwest.
A poster for "The Gay Deceivers" of a naked man holding a pillow, with the tagline "Is he? Or isn't he? Only his draftboard and his girlfriend know for sure."

The Gay Deceivers Was an Early Landmark for Queer Cinema

This 1969 film offers a compelling context for queer cinema and culture prior to the 1970s.
A drawing of a television screen between the fingers of someone framing an image of barbed wire.

The Problem With TV's New Holocaust Obsession

From 'The Tattooist of Auschwitz' to 'We Were the Lucky Ones,' a new wave of Holocaust dramas feel surprisingly shallow.
Ella Watson in American Gothic, photographed by Gordon Parks.

She Was No ‘Mammy’

Gordon Parks’s most famous photograph, "American Gothic," was of a cleaning woman in Washington, D.C. She has a story to tell.
Marlon Brando on the set of 'One-Eyed Jacks,' 1961.

Brando Unmatched

The legendary actor left a mark in both film history and an industry fraught with self-regard.
A drawing of Magneto wearing a kippah over his helmet.

The Judgment Of Magneto

From villain to antihero, nationalist to freedom fighter, the comic book character has always been a reflection of the Jewish cultural identity.
Aaron Douglas, detail from painting Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery to Reconstruction, 1934.

The Cosmopolitan Modernism of the Harlem Renaissance

The world-spanning art of the Harlem Renaissance.
J. Robert Oppenheimer lecturing in front of chalkboard.

Oppenheimer’s Second Coming

Japanese were interested when Oppenheimer visited Japan as an honored guest in 1960. Will they be also interested in the Nolan film released today in Japan?
A masculine caricature of an Irish-American woman threatening an American woman in a kitchen.
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From Saint to Stereotype: A Story of Brigid

Caricatures of Irish immigrants—especially Irish women—have softened, but persist in characters whose Irishness is expressed in subtle cues.
Sketch of women traveling with the Continental Army.

How a Curator at the Museum of the American Revolution Solved a Nearly 250-Year-Old Art Mystery

An eye-witness depiction of the Continental Army passing through Philadelphia hung in a New York apartment for decades.
Three men fight on a rooftop, above a large city on a river.

The Golden Age of the Paranoid Political Thriller

On the grand tradition of movies reflecting a deep distrust of those in charge.
Book cover that reads: "The Next Great American Novel," with the American flag in the background

"James" Is a Retelling of "Huckleberry Finn" that America Desperately Needs

It puts the people in the most peril in the center of the story: the people being systematically exploited, chained, whipped and raped.
Civil War soldiers on horseback with pistols.

The Hunt for John Wilkes Booth Goes On

A new television miniseries depicts the pursuit of Lincoln’s killer. But the public appetite for tales about the chase began even as it was happening.

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