popular culture

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• SOURCE: Oxford American
  1/24/2023
  

  Who Gets to Sing About Revenge in Pop Music?

  by Jewel Wicker

  Do the racial politics of musical genre explain why songs about revenge are celebrated in country music and turned into evidence for the prosecution against hip hop artists (even when the songs in question are fiction)?

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• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  1/19/2023
  

  11 Movies and Shows that Document the March of Technology

  From the office-sized computer to the landline, plot points that hinge on obsolete technology are a fun way to track how technologies structure our lives and our anxieties. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/6/2022
  

  Stax Records Co-Founder Jim Stewart Dies at 92

  Stewart's label in its heyday trailed only Motown Records as a purveyor of soul music, and the label's house bands created a distinctive and enduring style associated with Memphis. 

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• SOURCE: UnHerd
  10/28/2022
  

  At 40, Springsteen's "Nebraska" Holds Up as a Harbinger of Rural Despair

  "It sold poorly and due to its troubling themes, Springsteen did not take it on tour. Nebraska was left to speak for itself. Today, exactly 40 years after its release, that voice is no less disquieting."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/27/2022
  

  Stevie Wonder's "Talking Book" at 50

  Musical collaborators and artists later influenced by Stevie Wonder's declaration of musical independence explain the album's creation and impact. 

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• SOURCE: Vanity Fair
  10/11/2022
  

  Lizzo Talks About the Flute

  The pop superstar touches on numerous subjects, including making history belong to everyone and the historical relationship of racist and sexist stereotyping of Black women's performances looking back to Josephine Baker. 

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• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  10/4/2022
  

  What Lizzo Can Teach the Right about History

  Commentator Mona Charen writes that Lizzo's embrace of an artifact of the founding generation should be welcomed by conservatives, who claim to stand for a history shared by all Americans without regard for identity. 

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• SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
  9/15/2022
  

  "I'm Not Racist, I'm Just Mad Amazon is Destroying Tolkien's Middle Earth with Black Hobbits"

  by Mary Rambaran-Olm

  Viewer complaints that Amazon Prime has defiled the author's fantasy vision with "wokeness" ignore the historical diversity of the medieval society on which Tolkien based his works. 

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  9/16/2022
  

  How True is the History in "The Woman King"?

  "'The Woman King' chooses to make resistance to slavery its moral compass, then misrepresents a kingdom that trafficked tens of thousands as a vanguard in the struggle against it."

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• 9/11/2022
  

  Songs for Sale: Tin Pan Alley (Excerpt)

  by Bob Stanley

  American popular music didn't start with Elvis. It emerged when musical fads onstage converged with a new mass market for in-home record players to make song publishing big business. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/7/2022
  

  "Rings of Power" Speaks to a War-Hungry Audience

  by Daniel Bessner

  Inspired by Tolkien's experiences in the Great War, his fantasy books have been taken as allegories for the fight against Nazism, the Cold War, and the War on Terror. The new series reflects the anxieties of an American empire with neither a clear enemy nor the imagination to abandon militarism. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/7/2022
  

  Stories of Women's Comeuppance Expose Cruelty at Heart of Modern Society

  by Sarah Horowitz

  Like Anna Delvey and Elizabeth Holmes today, the 1909 trial of Marguerite Steinheil in Paris focused on an ambitious woman as a villain, but revealed a wider climate of impunity and self-dealing among elite men. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/4/2022
  

  The Real Medieval Civil War that Inspires "House of the Dragon"

  by Gillian Brockell

  The Anarchy, an English war of succession that lasted from 1138 to 1153, is part of the narrative inspiration for the new fantasy series. 

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• SOURCE: CNN
  8/29/2022
  

  Fantasy Series Take a Selective Approach to Historical Accuracy as an Excuse for Sexual Violence

  Medievalist Eleanor Janega wonders whether the creators of the "Game of Thrones" universe use historical accuracy as a justification to show graphic violence; their insistence on verisimilitude flags in other areas. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/10/2022
  

  Eve Babitz's Archive Reveals the Person Behind the Persona

  by Kevin Dettmar

  "What could the personal documents of a writer who was so public about her private world teach us about her work? How much of that persona was a performance and how much a reflection of her real anxieties and ambitions?"

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  8/9/2022
  

  "Bridgerton" and Its Blind Spot for Colonialist History

  by Trishula Patel

  In nodding to contemporary British diversity by casting actors of color in roles originally written as "white," the program misses the bigger opportunity to examine the histories of colonialism that brought people of Indian and African descent to Britain during the Regency period. 

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• 8/14/2022
  

  Despite the Cultural Differences, There's Common Ground Between Boomers and Zoomers

  by Joseph Preston Baratta

  Despite the differences in their cultural touchstones, Gen Z faces the yet-incomplete challenge of the Baby Boom generation: uniting the world in novel ways to solve global problems. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  8/9/2022
  

  Lamont Dozier, Part of Legendary Motown Songwriting Team, Dies at 81

  With Brian and Eddie Holland, Dozier formed the formidable "HDH" songwriting partnership that turned out many of the biggest hits of the 1960s for The Supremes and The Four Tops among other Motown acts. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  8/1/2022
  

  At 100, Norman Lear's Transformative Influence is Still Felt on TV

  by Oscar Winberg

  "All in the Family" capitalized on the culture wars of the 1960s to show that television networks could depart from safe, inoffensive programming and acknowledge social divisions. 

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• SOURCE: Texas Standard
  7/22/2022
  

  Texas State Prof. Launches Harry Styles History Course

  Louis Dean Valencia realized during the pandemic that icebreaking conversations with students about pop music opened up many avenues for discussing historical subjects including the politics of celebrity.