Culture Archives - Public Seminar

Horror and Humor in Hulu’s The Other Black Girl

The genre-bending drama challenges the white workplace

February 26, 2024 • by Kelby Clark

Based on the bestselling novel by Zakiya Dalila Harris, The Other Black Girl dissects the horror of insidious racism in white workplaces...

Horror and Humor in Hulu’s <em>The Other Black Girl</em>

Film & Performing Arts

American Fiction Offers a New Spin on the Challenges Facing Black Artists

Director Cord Jefferson tackles Percival Everett’s 2001, novel Erasure

February 12, 2024 • by Zenzelé Soa-Clarke

Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction is garnering praise this awards season for its satirical approach to Black representation...

<em>American Fiction</em> Offers a New Spin on the Challenges Facing Black Artists

Past Present

The History of Drive-Thru Dining

Episode 401

November 21, 2023 • by Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and Neil J. Young

In Episode 401 of Past Present, Neil, Niki, and Natalia discuss the history of drive-thru dining. ...

Europe & Central Asia

The Art of Misunderstanding

On how to preserve one’s dignity while keeping the attention of western institutions

January 12, 2023 • by Kateryna Botanova

The idea that the purpose of culture is reconciliation confronts Ukrainian cultural activists with a dilemma: how to preserve one’s dignity while keeping the attention of western institutions? ...

Migration

The Dilemma of a Fragmented Self

Mass migrations, language, and the future of identity

November 9, 2022 • by Ken Hu

How can language create such a convoluted way of experiencing the everyday world? We can explore this phenomenon with two linked concepts: the speech act and the discourse community. ...

Capitalism

The Rat Race of Prestige and Boredom

W. David Marx on how status affects human behavior

November 9, 2022 • by Alla Anatsko and W. David Marx

The whole idea of cultural capital is knowing what objects to buy, how to arrange them, how to behave—all of these things go together. Just because you can purchase an object does not mean you can get into the group....

The Arts

Docking the Long Tail of Culture

How mass culture has scored a decisive victory in the age of the Internet

November 9, 2022 • by W. David Marx

In the past, the difficulty of acquiring long-tail content suggested that a person had many underlying status assets, such as intelligence, curiosity, and deep knowledge. When anyone can find anything obscure on the Internet within minutes, acquisition alone reveals no virtues or skills....

Climate & Ecology

A Globe, Clothing Itself with Ears

Stories of speaking with animals are as old as human history

November 3, 2022 • by Karen Bakker

Human ambivalence about animal language persists and is linked with our uncertainty about human status: Are we one animal among others, or does something truly set us apart? Debates over animal language are a touchstone for human uncertainties about our role in the cosmos....

Democracy

Can Art Reimagine Freedom of Speech?

Curators Carin Kuoni and Laura Raicovich discuss Studies into Darkness

November 1, 2022 • by Carin Kuoni, Laura Raicovich and Lindsey Scharold

Building up to the Trump presidency in the U.S. and, at the same time, coinciding with the rise of authoritarian regimes in democracies in Europe, Hungary, and Italy years prior to that, it seemed very important to look at the Right and its complete embrace of freedom of speech in ...

Uncategorized

The Women Who Built Playboy

An interview with podcast host Amy Rose Spiegel

October 6, 2022 • by Amy Rose Spiegel and Mette Kierstein

Women who were really responsible for shaping Playboy were Hefner’s closest confidants; they worked in the clubs and interacted with the magazine in ways that changed the trajectories of their lives....

Film & Performing Arts

Three Thousand Years of Longing—And One Hour and Forty-Eight Minutes of Regret from This Humanities Professor

The new film from George Miller doesn’t do humanities scholars any favors

October 5, 2022 • by Hannah H. Kim

The problem of Three Thousand Years of Longing isn’t just that Alithea, our unfortunate representative, is unimaginative; the plot suggests the humanities have no natural home in the twenty-first century....

Three Thousand Years of Longing—And One Hour and Forty-Eight Minutes of Regret from This Humanities Professor

Fashion

Why Are We Afraid of Flounces and Frills?

An excerpt from Fashion | Sense: On Philosophy and Fashion

September 7, 2022 • by Gwenda-lin Grewal

Why do most philosophers hate clothes—or rather, hate fashion? The majority rule seems to be to treat the outer surface with either ritual formality or complete derision, as if the less you comb your hair the closer you are to truth....