Culture

Racism being an ulcerated ostrich or a crenulated werewolf, perhaps an infected tourniquet or an awkward viper claiming itself as victim, aggressive, mamba-like, shape-shifting, always claiming its goal in terms…

My musical composition, “Calm Before the Storm,” was inspired by Mark Rothko’s later work (1957-1969). For me, Rothko’s work from this period, particularly his painting, “Black, Red and Black,” possesses…

I’ve been reading Selah Saterstrom’s writing for thirteen years, beginning with her first novel, The Pink Institution, which I discovered in 2005, a year after it was published. I bought…

Anthropological representations of black women, sexuality and families in the African Diaspora (early-mid 20th century)   This course will emphasize the history of women anthropologists, especially women from ethnic or…

It had been a while since I’d thought about National Geographic. I had ‘unliked’ it along with all travel and nature sites when I’d moved back from Uganda two years…

Scarleteen, a sexuality and relationships website for teens and emerging adults, defines gender as “a web of characteristics that are seen or presented as distinguishing between male and female.” Note:…

Suchitra Mattai’s “Memory, History, Forgetting (After Paul Ricœur)” serves as a conceptual centerpiece for her exhibit “Sweet Asylum,” which is now on display at K Contemporary in Denver, Colorado. The…

This is part of a recurring column about modern romance, dating, and more.  I never intended to be a prostitute. Or a hooker. Or a sex worker. That certainly wasn’t what…

I have a childhood memory of watching the Korean actor Bak Yongsik on television, playing a hapless buffoon on a comedy show. He was only in his thirties at the…

Forthcoming June 2018 from Mason Jar Press I Am Not Famous Anymore is a collection of erasure poems sourced from media interviews with Shia LaBeouf (from Rolling Stone, Dazed, GQ,…

I waited for an hour to see Black Panther, wondering why there was no black people to the front policy. My friend beside me was complaining that no black person…

Most syllabi I know start from a confident assumption of objectivity. These compilations of sources usually assure us of their realness, their solidity, their rationality. I appreciate them, I really…

At home it’s always safe. —Zbigniew Herbert For several months in 2010 I suffered from anxiety induced nausea while riding the subway. It was a peculiar kind of subterranean panic.…

Geohell: Imagining History in the Contemporary World by Matthew Kenner 549 pages – Amazon   With over a billion people on the planet living in extreme poverty, billions more struggling…