Cultural Studies

You Can't Unsee the Truth About Cars

by Andrew Ross and Julie Livingston

Despite cultural mythology, cars are actually un-freedom machines, and drivers of inequality, particularly for racial minorities. It's a mistake for the Biden administration's infrastructure agenda to further enshrine the car as the dominant means of mobility. 

Against Queer Presentism—How Literary Studies Neglects the Archive

by Colton Valentine

LGBTQ writers in today's literary world too often operate on the presumption that they are the first to experience queerness openly, making their own experiences of repression seem universal and transhistorical, and effacing older fictional and critical voices. 

Ailing Empires: The Rhetoric of Decline in Britain and the US

by Jed Esty

If the US is following behind Great Britain in experiencing the strains of a collapsing empire, can Americans, their leaders, and their thinkers learn any lessons from the comparison and make a post-imperial society that is more humane and less nasty? 

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."

The People vs. the Hip Hop Industry

by Jessica A. Rucker

A high school teacher examines how students' critical sense is engaged by looking at hip hop music as a product alienated by an industry from the people who have historically created it.