Whatever USA–or–Is It Time for a New Federal Writers’ Project?
State by State (2008) is rife with jaunty attacks, superficial panegyrics, random reportage, and puberty memoirs. Isn’t it time for a comparable update?
america
Jaki Shelton Green Blends Poetry and Protest on Timely ‘The River Speaks of Thirst’
Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green's The River Speaks of Thirst is at once a political statement, cultural commentary, and an aesthetic milestone, a skillful commingling of galvanic activism and evocative poetry.
Shaved Jews and Philosemitic Fantasy: On ‘Jud Süss’ and ‘Das alte Desetz’
The fascist mind, always limited by parochial sentimentality, fears art because it fears any hint of ambiguity.
‘The Standoff at Sparrow Creek’ Is a Tense, Mean Little Film with Something to Prove
Despite a premise that feels ripped from today's headlines, the debut film from writer-director Henry Dunham works as both a tense reflection on these times of gun violence and an effective study of something far more timeless.
‘So You Want to Talk About Race’?
Author and activist Ijeoma Oluo pens a user-friendly yet pointed examination of how to face and start dismantling America’s racist society.
Without a Net’s Memoirs of Poverty in America Will Haunt You. Let It.
These women are not simply simulating scenes of poverty for the reader; they experienced it and now they own it as one constant facet of their diverse identities.
The Story of a Nation Built on Murder, Theft, and Cruelty
The specter of slavery draws unavoidable correlations to contemporary American society in Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad.
A Road Warrior Shares Lessons on Community with ‘What I Found in a Thousand Towns’
Musician Dar Williams lets it all hang out with piercing opinions and shrewd take-aways.
‘Nomadland’ Defines a New Kind of Migrant Worker in America: The Elderly
To be a migrant worker in America is to relearn the basic skills of living. Imagine doing that in your 60s and 70s, when you thought you'd be retired.
‘Far Away Brothers’: What Becomes of the Children Who Must Flee Home and Country?
Lauren Markham's The Far Away Brothers puts forth the story of two young lives caught up in the pressing need to immigrate.
All Hail the King: Chuck Berry Reinvented Music, and America
After Chuck Berry, rock music would forever be a gumbo of competing and complimentary source points, but his first-person flights of fancy still represent its most undiluted potential.
Could It Happen in America? The Rise and Fall of Fritz Kuhn’s German-American Bund
Could America have become a Swastika nation in the '30s? Arnie Bernstein assembles a riveting in-depth portrayal of the rise and fall of Fritz Kuhn's German-American Bund.