Menu
Category

Culture

On folkways and creative industry.

Featured Resource

Collage of people in "preppy" clothing.

We’re All Preppy Now

How a style steeped in American elitism took over the world.
by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela via The New Republic on August 14, 2023
Hip hop nightclub.

Golden-Era Rap Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition

In Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities.
by Antoine S. Johnson via Black Perspectives on August 15, 2023
A colorized photo of a woman in the 1850s.

The Past in Color

A short history of hand-colored photos during the Civil War era.
by Nick Sacco via Muster on August 29, 2023
Diners conversing at French restaurant.

Crème de la Crème

How French cuisine became beloved among status-hungry diners in the United States, from Thomas Jefferson to Kanye West.
by Kelly Alexander, Claire Bunschoten via Aeon on July 7, 2023

Exhibits

Exhibit

Moving Pictures

Tracing the history of Americans' relationships with the silver screen, from film's earliest days to the cinematic creations of our own times.

Exhibit

Living With the Dead

From rituals of mourning to spirit mediums and ghost stories, Americans' varied attempts to connect with those who have gone before us.

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.
by Rachel Himes via The Nation on April 9, 2024
Larry David.

The End of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Marks the End of an Era

Larry David is the last of his kind—and in several ways.
by Daniel Bessner via The Nation on April 8, 2024
Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs & Hidden Histories

Jelly Roll Blues: Censored Songs & Hidden Histories

From the beginning of the recording industry, many voices have been suppressed and significant cultural history has been lost to prudery and censorship.
by Steve Provizer via Syncopated Times on April 1, 2024
A celebration of Linda Martell on the stage of the Country Music Awards.

Who is Linda Martell, the Black Country Musician Beyoncé Spotlights?

The first Black woman to play the Grand Ole Opry and hit Billboard’s country music charts.
by Jonathan Edwards via Washington Post on March 30, 2024
The album cover of "Cowboy Carter" released by Beyonce in 2024

Cowboy Carter and the Black Roots of Country Music

Beyoncé is following in the footsteps of many Black musicians before her.
by The Birthplace of Country Music Museum via Teen Vogue on March 29, 2024
1975 shot of a victim of police brutality. Photo by Corky Lee.

The Chronicler of Asian America: On Photographer and Activist Corky Lee

“We await our moment, in pursuit of the picture that Corky envisaged, a portrait of a community that is too large and too brilliant.”
by Hua Hsu via Literary Hub on March 28, 2024
‘Fifty Shades of White’ by Jaune Quick-To-See Smith.

Remembering the Future

Climate change, colonization, and the Navajo Nation.
by Hazel V. Carby via London Review of Books on March 27, 2024
A masculine caricature of an Irish-American woman threatening an American woman in a kitchen.
partner

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.
by Melanie Beth Curran, Margaret Lynch-Brennan, M. Alison Kibler, Peter Flynn via JSTOR Daily on March 27, 2024
Cesar Chavez standing next to Luis Valdez.

Cesar Chavez, Family and Filmmaking with Luis Valdez

Luis Valdez on his friendship with Cesar Chavez, his works in the National Film Registry, and a lifetime of activism.
by Luis Valdez, Stacie Seifrit-Griffin via Library of Congress Blog on March 27, 2024
partner

Tunnel Vision

When you dig beyond all purpose, digging becomes the purpose.
by Daniel Lavery via HNN on March 26, 2024
Alice Coltrane

The Visions of Alice Coltrane

In the years after her husband John’s death, the harpist discovered a sound all her own, a jazz rooted in acts of spirit and will.
by Marcus J. Moore via The Nation on March 21, 2024
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.
by Jarvis Deberry via MSNBC on March 19, 2024
A collage of suggestive images of women, a woman holding a camera, and a red letter X.

How Candida Royalle Set Out to Reinvent Porn

As a feminist in the adult-film industry, she believed the answer wasn’t banning porn; it was better porn.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on March 18, 2024
Boxes with Black American history inside

The Black Box of Race

In a circumscribed universe, Black Americans have ceaselessly reinvented themselves.
by Henry Louis Gates Jr. via The Atlantic on March 16, 2024

The Great American Novels

136 books that made America think.
via The Atlantic on March 14, 2024
A collage of dance performances.

Dance, Revolution

George Balanchine and Martha Graham Trade Places.
by Juliana Devaan via The Drift on March 12, 2024

Past Tense

The historical novel isn’t cool. Popular? Yes. Enduring? Yes. A bit, well — for nerds? Also yes. Coolness lies in being at the right place at the right time.
by David Schurman Wallace via The Drift on March 12, 2024
Broken statue bust of a Black man.

A Bloody Retelling of 'Huckleberry Finn'

Percival Everett transforms Mark Twain’s classic 'Huckleberry Finn' into a tragedy.
by Tyler Austin Harper via The Atlantic on March 12, 2024
"A Grain of Sand" record
partner

Charting the Music of a Movement

Galvanized by an act of racial violence, the band A Grain of Sand brought a new version of Asian American activism and identity to the folk music scene.
by Oliver Wang, H. M. A. Leow via JSTOR Daily on March 11, 2024
Painting of Arnold Schoenberg in Los Angeles.

How Arnold Schoenberg Changed Hollywood

He moved to California during the Nazi era, and his music—which ranged from the lushly melodic to the rigorously atonal—caught the ears of everyone.
by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on March 11, 2024
"Alien Embrace" repeated artwork

The Institute for Illegal Images

Meditating on blotter not just as art, or as a historical artifact, but as a kind of media, even a “meta medium.”
by Erik Davis via The Paris Review on March 4, 2024
Keith Haring spray painting

Keith Haring, the Boy Who Cried Art

Was he a brilliant painter or a brilliant brand?
by Jackson Arn via The New Yorker on March 4, 2024
Robert Stroud in his prison cell, surrouded by books and bird cages.
partner

Freeing Birdman of Alcatraz

Neither the Bureau of Prisons nor the Production Code Administration could stop the production of a movie about murderer and ornithologist Robert Stroud.
by Matthew Wills, David Eldridge via JSTOR Daily on March 3, 2024
Books, diaries and poetry collections from the Issei Poetry Project.

Issei Poetry Between the World Wars

The rich history of Japanese-language literature challenges assumptions about what counts as U.S. art.
by Kenji C. Liu via High Country News on March 1, 2024
Mario Van Peebles in Outlaw Posse.

How a Century of Black Westerns Shaped Movie History

Mario Van Peebles' "Outlaw Posse" is the latest attempt to correct the erasure of people of color from the classic cinema genre.
by Chris Klimek via Smithsonian on March 1, 2024
South Pacific.

You've Got to Be Carefully Taught

Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific shows the limits–and power–of mainstream entertainment in addressing weighty social topics.
by Stephen Akey via American Purpose on March 1, 2024
A photograph of George Washington Cable with Mark Twain.

The Dying Pelican

Romanticism, local color, and nostalgic New Orleans.
by Eleanor Stern via 64 Parishes on February 29, 2024
A collage of red beans and rice with a "Welcome to Louisiana" sign, celebrities from New Orleans, and a Haitian flag.

Red Beans and Rice: A Journey from Africa to Haiti to New Orleans

“It was an affirmation of our city,” says New Orleanian food historian Lolis Eric Elie.
by Joseph Lamour via TODAY.com on February 29, 2024
Two elderly Black women.

How the Memory of a Song Reunited Two Women Separated by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

In 1990, scholars found a Sierra Leonean woman who remembered a nearly identical version of a tune passed down by a Georgia woman’s enslaved ancestors
by Joshua Kagavi via Smithsonian on February 29, 2024
Maria P. Williams, 1916.

The First Black Woman to Write, Produce, and Act in Her Own Film

Maria P. Williams pioneered filmmaking for African American women, but her life is even more thrilling than her sole film.
by Jennie Knuppel via The Saturday Evening Post on February 29, 2024
brought to you by
© Bunk History