popular culture

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  4/22/2022
  

  The History Behind "The Northman"

  by David M. Perry and Matthew Gabriele

  The new epic has been billed as the most historically accurate Viking epic to play on screen, but it's accuracy comes from its effort to capture the subjective nature of Norse spirituality and supernatural belief and the narrative forms recognized by medieval audiences.

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  4/26/2022
  

  How Dennis Hopper Ran the Wildest Party House in Hollywood

  The house of the actor and his wife Brooke Hayward was a gathering place of fertile movements in film, arts and music that made the 1960s. 

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  4/22/2022
  

  The Roots of the Story of "The Northman"

  Neil Price describes the work of being a historical consultant on the new Icelandic epic, including the story's common roots with "Hamlet" and the realities of Viking combat. 

• 
• SOURCE: Vanity Fair
  4/21/2022
  

  Previewing Tulsa's New Bob Dylan Center

  by Douglas Brinkley

  "The center—a high-tech vessel holding the man’s oeuvre and an overview of the man—will be the spiritual home of Dylan, a relentless performer who is forever on the road."

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  4/19/2022
  

  How "4:20" Became Enshrined in Pot Culture

  Bored teens plus a coincidental after-school meeting time plus a statue of Louis Pasteur plus a gig as a Grateful Dead roadie turned out to equal a viral piece of pot culture that is known worldwide today.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  4/18/2022
  

  Can the Roots of Greatness be Found in Bob Dylan's Minnesota Hometown?

  If Dylan himself has always been ambivalent about his Iron Range roots, there is still much to learn about the artist and the nation from a visit. 

• 
• 4/17/2022
  

  This Failed Blockbuster Killed Old Hollywood (and Maybe John Wayne, Too)

  by Ryan Uytdewilligen

  When John Wayne played Genghis Khan in a disastrous Howard Hughes production, it helped to kill RKO studios. Did it also expose the cast and crew to deadly nuclear fallout? 

• 
• SOURCE: Ms.
  3/29/2022
  

  Hip Hop’s ‘Hidden Figures’: The Feminist Herstory and Future of Hip Hop

  "In every facet of hip hop music and culture, women have been innovating and setting new precedents, yet most connoisseurs of hip hop remain unaware of how women have actively shaped its culture and music from inception."

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  3/24/2022
  

  "Bridgerton" Keeps Perpetuating the Hollywood Corset Myth

  by Hilary Davidson

  Hollywood tends to portray women's historical fashions through a lens formed by today's ways of dressing, and ignore the more complex material and social history of clothing. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/24/2022
  

  How American Culture Ate the World

  by Dexter Fergie

  Sam Lebovic's book "A Righteous Smokescreen" seeks to explain how the cultural globalization of the 20th century was a one-way exchange of American culture that left Americans dominant but isolated from and ignorant of the rest of the world. 

• 
• SOURCE: Society for Classical Studies
  3/14/2022
  

  Sampling the Epic in Kendrick Lamar's "Mortal Man"

  by Justine McConnell

  Remembering the essential orality of classical epics can help to understand them as works that have been sampled and remixed, and to place contemporary popular culture in dialogue with that tradition. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  3/14/2022
  

  Dave Grohl's Incurable Optimism

  Historian Daniel Bessner says that Dave Grohl's memoir is heavy on affable storytelling but doesn't offer Grohl's views on the huge shakeups in the music industry that he's witnessed over his career. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  3/7/2022
  

  West Side Story and the Tragedy of Progressive Hollywood

  by Éric Morales-Franceschini

  Critical debates about the "West Side Story" remake focus on representation, but ignore the politics of Puerto Rico. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  3/1/2022
  

  Dana Stevens: How Buster Keaton Revolutionized the Film Industry

  In her new book "Camera Man" Stevens shows how Keaton's career connected to the changes shaking up entertainment and society. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Bulwark
  2/21/2022
  

  Spielberg was the Director Lincoln Deserved

  The director, with writer Tony Kushner and star Daniel Day-Lewis, nailed the idea of Lincoln as an imperfect leader nevertheless "fitted to the times we were born into," in a film that holds up after ten years.

• 
• SOURCE: Rolling Stone
  2/9/2022
  

  Betty Davis, Pioneering Queen of Funk, Dies at 77

  Her brief marriage to jazz great Miles Davis and ultimate withdrawal from the music business have overshadowed Betty Davis's legacy as a songwriter and performer with lasting influence beyond her album sales. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/6/2022
  

  The Neil Young-Joe Rogan Affair Shows the Long History of the Music Industry

  by Sam Backer

  The music industry's adaptation to the streaming age (and return to profits for the big labels) is part of a long history extracting money from new technologies, including giving artists the smallest slice of the pie. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/23/2022
  

  Is Old Music Killing New Music?

  by Ted Gioia

  The growth in sales in music is coming overwhelmingly from old songs. Can the music industry sustain new performers if money keeps flowing to old catalogues? 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  1/20/2022
  

  Another Hendrix Legacy Lawsuit: Family Seeks to Block Royalty Claim by Heirs of Bandmates

  Lawyers for the Hendrix family argued that a suit for back royalties by the heirs of Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were invalid because of waivers signed by the guitarist's British bandmates soon after his 1970 death. 

• 
• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  1/18/2022
  

  Native on TV in 2021

  by Liza Black

  "Where 20th- and early 21st-century shows used Native characters in superficial ways, perhaps to create an appearance of diversity, Reservation Dogs and Rutherford Falls center Indigenous characters, themes, and content, decolonizing conventional television narratives about Native people."