How “Hip Checks” Betray Our Gender-Mediated Gaze
Erica Rand applies the sports method, “hip checks”, to explore race and gender bias in ‘The Small Book of Hip Checks’.
Linda Levitt
Reading, thinking, talking and writing. Communication PhD and assoc prof in Texas.
Hilma af Klint’s Art Gives Shape to the Things We Cannot See
Swedish artist Hilma af Klint embraced theosophy and its intent of exploring occult phenomena by uniting spirituality and science.
Visual Culture’s Power Over You
Visual culture is not just ubiquitous, it's also a potent force.
‘Clutter’ Gets in Your Head
In Jennifer Howard's social history, Clutter, the emotional relationship to the material world is critical in trying to understand her mother's hoarding behaviors.
Literary Scholar Andrew H. Miller On Solitude As a Common Bond
Andrew H. Miller's On Not Being Someone Else considers how contemplating other possibilities for one's life is a way of creating meaning in the life one leads.
Manual for Survival’s History of Chernobyl Resonates in Our Time of COVID-19
Shortly after the reactor explosion in Chernobyl in 1986, officials in Belarus offered up an argument that will be hauntingly familiar to those tracking the spread of COVID-19.
Kent Russell Seeks the Soul of Florida on Epic Road Trip, on Foot
In a bit of drunken revelry, Kent Russell and his buddies decide it is their destiny to tell the gonzo story of Florida in the time when Trump is campaigning for president.
It’s Not Just Fashion, It’s Visual Activism
Fashion is a verb for the LGBTQ+ community, and Closet Cases shows how people use style and artifacts to build a self-image that is both a statement and a truth.
When British Advertising Became Ubiquitous and Beautiful
Lambert tracks British social history through posters, cards, and other ephemera in the vividly illustrated The Art of Advertising.
The Rules Don’t Apply to These Nonconformist Novelists
Ian Haydn Smith's succinct biographies in Cult Writers: 50 Nonconformist Novelists You Need to Know entice even seasoned bibliophiles.
In ‘Wandering Dixie’, Discovering the Jewish South Is Part of Discovering Self
Sue Eisenfeld's Wandering Dixie is not only a collection of dispatches from the lost Jewish South but also a journey of self-discovery.