Features

Screening Africa

The new venture Afripedia is out to change your view of the continent, one featured artist at a time.

Party Entry

Steven C. Smith, WUSTL professor of political science and social science, explains why smaller parties pop up all the time in the United States, but seldom last.

The Rock and the Hollywood Shuffle*

The 2016 Academy Awards nominations’ whiteness has become a national civil rights issue. In his opening monologue at the ceremony, host Chris Rock stated: “I’m sure there wasn’t no black nominees [in] ’62 or ’63. And black people did not protest. Why? Because we had real things to protest at the time.” Rock was in […]

“And I saw, I can do this.”

M. Lynn Weiss, associate professor of English and American Studies at William & Mary, conducts at 2014 interview with Adrienne Kennedy, one of the most prominent voices of African-American theater.

How the Homeless Listen to Music

Until I could find an apartment, I rode the No. 6 bus up and down Highway 99 most of the night, from downtown to Aurora Village, listening to muffled, skewed robotic drum beats of fellow travelers from behind the earphones of turned-up Walkmans, looking out into the dark. No, scratch that, looking at myself in the reflection of myself on bus windows in the dark.

Most Timely: Hooray for Hollywood

Now is an apt time to look back on Caleb Peterson’s protest, both as an antecedent and as inspiration. His strategy, which turned Hollywood’s moneymaking spectacles into race relations controversies, smartly used theatricality as a tool for protest. While its impact on equal hiring practices was unclear, it can still be read as radical and successful.

Talking With Girls About Katy Perry

The complicated relationship between girls and music, and the mobility that it both affords and denies them, is only legible through conversations with girls. As it turns out, the music of Katy Perry makes that relationship most legible.