cultural history

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  11/10/2022
  

  Lunchtime in Italy: Work, Time and Civil Society

  by Jonathan Levy

  The Italian lunchtime insists that time be organized around communal rituals and sustenance, not work. Does the utter foreignness of this attitude in America help explain the current national derangement? 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Magazine
  11/1/2022
  

  How Gael Greene Reinvented the Restaurant Critic

  Greene wrote about restaurants as arenas for the display of status and a part of the city's culture, the way that the dining public did. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Baffler
  11/7/2022
  

  Who Still Needs the Carnivalesque?

  by Ed Simon

  Despite its repeated theorization, the political meaning of carnivals and the social inversions they temporarily enable remains hotly debated. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/2/2022
  

  The Shift from Norms to Boundaries Explains the Problem of TMI

  "Too Much Information" is a social error that arises from the need for individuals to determine their own boundaries and match their expression to others'. But longing for firmer rules of etiquette should be tempered by understanding how those rules were based in ideas about whose voices should be heard. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/1/2022
  

  Pickup Trucks: Less Needed for Work, More Needed to Signal Masculinity?

  Historian Mark Metzler Sawin explains why pickup trucks are the top-selling vehicles in America, even as the country is more urbanized and less engaged with farm and manual labor than ever before. 

• 
• SOURCE: Christianity Today
  9/20/2022
  

  "Passion Plays": The Overlap of Sports Fandom and American Christianity

  by Paul Emory Putz

  A reviewer notes that a new book by a leading interpreter of American evangelical culture may raise important awareness about the wonderment and faith inherent in sports fandom, but leaves out some discussion of how sports support an increasingly masculinist Christianity. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  9/14/2022
  

  The Historical Roots of "Florida Man"

  by Julio Capó, Jr. and Tyler Gillespie

  The internet meme "Florida Man" signals a caricature of the presumed recklessness and ignorance of the state's population. But these stories have a long history of justifying colonialism and profiteering in the Sunshine State, and stand in the way of progress today. 

• 
• 9/11/2022
  

  Arena Rockin' The Vote?

  by George Case

  Dismissed, derided, or even deplored by critics, and out of step with the trends, arena rock acts still pack them in in much of America. Is it the sonic key to understanding Trumpism? 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  8/27/2022
  

  Sorry Zoomers, Gen X Invented the "Quiet Quit"

  "Strivers, grinders and hustlers hate them, but quiet quitters, slackers and work-to-rulers are treasured antiheroes in American folk culture."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/29/2022
  

  Historians Ask what the Decline of Nude Beaches Tells Us about the Internet's Influence

  Historians of naturism Sarah Schrank and Stephen L. Harp believe that the panoptical nature of social media is eroding a longstanding divergence between European and American attitudes about nudity in public spaces, particularly among young women. 

• 
• 8/28/2022
  

  Uncancel Wilma Soss

  by Robert E. Wright and Janice Traflet

  Wilma Soss defied norms as a woman who became independently wealthy through her PR agency and her investments, but the circumstances of her marriage and her outspoken advocacy for shareholders against corporate waste led to her erasure.  Her biographers hope to correct that. 

• 
• SOURCE: New Statesman
  8/17/2022
  

  Sarah Churchwell on the Lies of "Gone With the Wind"

  by Adam Hochshild

  Does a 500 page book on the historical distortions of the novel and film seem like beating a dead horse? What if the horse is still alive and threatening to trample people? 

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  7/26/2022
  

  Have Children Changed in Modern America?

  by Steven Mintz

  A recent argument for the general stability of children over the last century and a half misses the key point that "childhood" has been a fluid concept, and changes in how childhood is understood has necessarily affected the experiences of children. 

• 
• 8/7/2022
  

  A Primary Source Shows the Connection Between 1920s Flappers and Social Media Youth Organizers Today

  by Jason Ulysses Rose

  While youth are often dismissed as frivolous, their media often reveal engagement, creativity, and wisdom that ther political elders would be wise to heed – in the 1920s as today. 

• 
• 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. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  7/20/2022
  

  Is a 23 Year-Old Named Kingfish Bridging the Past and Future of the Blues?

  by Carlo Rotella

  Although he came on the scene as a guitar hotshot, Christone "Kingfish" Ingram's artistic ambitions go beyond the bombastic soloing of the blues-rock genre and incorporate more of the traditional breadth of the blues as African American music. 

• 
• SOURCE: London Review of Books
  6/9/2022
  

  The Enduring Appeal of the BBC's "Desert Island Discs" – the Longest Running Interview Show

  The famous and would-be famous have faced the dilemma of telling the world about themselves by listing the records (and luxury items) they'd want with them on a desert island; post-1951 episodes are now available as podcasts.

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/30/2022
  

  Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward's Relationship at the Center of the New Hollywood

  Mark Rozzo's "Everybody Thought We Were Crazy" tells the story of artistic encounters that ran through the couple's home. 

• 

• How We Told the Ongoing Story of Title IX

  by Laura Mogulescu

  A curator and her team chose to center the work of activists who pushed to determine the scope and meaning of Title IX's prohibition on sex discrimination in education throughout the law's 50-year history. Their exhibit is now open at the New-York Historical Society.