'Shapeshifters' and Other Trans-forming Humans
Supernatural Historian John Kachuba deftly demonstrates in Shapeshifters: A History that change is the only constant in life.
06 Dec 2019
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The Book Every American Needs to Read: 'Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People'
Award-winning lawyer Ben Crump's Open Season irrefutably documents how America's treatment of Black Americans and other minorities is indistinguishable from genocide.
05 Dec 2019
Tlatelolco '68: The Democratic Struggle That Refuses to Die
The Mexican student struggle of 1968 reaches forward to democratic struggles today. Captured by Paco Ignacio Taibo II in two works, 1982's Calling All Heroes and this year's '68: The Mexican Autumn of the Tlatelolco Massacre, it's a powerful reminder of the resilience of democracy.
18 Nov 2019
Was the Great War a Supernatural War?
The memoirs of WWI soldiers are filled with references to seeing things that could not have been there. They knew that it was the war itself that haunted them, the war that became almost anthropomorphic, a self-conscious thing out to murder them.
01 Nov 2019
Cynthia Erivo's Performance Carries Kasi Lemmons' 'Harriet'
Cynthia Erivo's transcendent turn as Union spy, escaped slave, and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman shines through Kasi Lemmons' heroic but oversimplified biopic, Harriet.
31 Oct 2019
Bad and Mad: The Troubled and Troubling Pop Culture War Vet
In these trying times of Trump, as American chauvinism thumps its chest and loudly threatens those who question, there is little room for contemporary filmmakers, or policymakers, who encourage sympathy for the war-damaged, the wounded, the wrecked.
28 Oct 2019
Rupert Goold's 'Judy' and the Queer-ing of the Biopic
Recent queer icon films Judy, Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman tease their key audience while keeping one foot solidly in straight land. Is this progress?
24 Oct 2019
Ted Gioia's 'Music: A Subversive History' (By the Book)
"Sound," writes musician, author, and historian Ted Gioia in Music: A Subversive History, "is the ultimate source of genesis... A song can contain a cataclysm." In this beguiling excerpt, Gioia leads us to the sound of the universe itself.
Ted Gioia
Books
22 Oct 2019
'The View from Somewhere' Exposes the Dangerous Myth of 'Objective' Reporting
'Objectivity' in journalism has become a shield for privilege and a weapon for right-wing pundits, argues Lewis Raven Wallace in his work, The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity.
18 Oct 2019
The Cigarette: A Political History (By the Book)
Sarah Milov's The Cigarette restores politics to its rightful place in the tale of tobacco's rise and fall, illustrating America's continuing battles over corporate influence, individual responsibility, collective choice, and the scope of governmental power. Enjoy this excerpt from Chapter 5. "Inventing the Nonsmoker".
Sarah Milov
Books
16 Oct 2019
Revolutionary Victor Serge Has a Message for Our Times
Victor Serge, a rare survivor of Stalin's Terror, had a keen, razor-sharp intelligence and made observations that are highly relevant to our troubled times.
10 Oct 2019
Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power (By the Book)
In Move On Up, Aaron Cohen tells the remarkable story of the explosion of soul music in Chicago. This excerpt gives a taste of his engaging research into the rise of teenage culture and soul music's resistance against the city's infrastructural racism.
02 Oct 2019
By the Book: I'd Fight the World: A Political History of Old-Time, Hillbilly, and Country Music
I'd Fight the World explores the connection between country music and electoral politics, giving us a glimpse into how politicians used celebrity long before the rise of the "movie-actor president" and the "Twitter president".
13 Sep 2019
When Chicago Became a Shoppers' Paradise for Women, Men Had to Step Aside
Creating a culture of consumption in 20th century Chicago meant making space for shoppers, which meant integrating women into public life, in a downtown dominated by men. Historian Emily Remus revels in the ramifications of that cultural shift in A Shoppers' Paradise.
22 Aug 2019
'Out of Our Minds' Considers Freedom and Force, Coercion and Custom
In Out of Our Minds, Fernández-Armesto encourages readers to distrust visionaries who promise perfection.
21 Aug 2019
Generational Solidarity: Folk Band the Weavers and the Damages Done by the Red Scare
Wasn't That a Time digs into the Weaver's empathy for the working class struggle, which was weaponized and politicized against them by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
14 Aug 2019
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