Culture
Making meaning of people making meaning.
The Top Model Life
Top Model doesn't necessarily catapult its winners to modeling stardom, but it does advertise many of the realities of the modeling life: judgment, insecurity and product placement, to name a few. Read MoreNeoliberalism and the Realities of Reality Television
Often critiqued for its contrived presentation of real life, reality television has not only transformed the television landscape over the past decade, it neatly reflects the neoliberalism of the period. Read MoreDo The Right Thing Turns 20
While the Brooklyn neighborhood featured in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing has certainly changed since 1989, the film captured urban America on the verge of that transformation. The movie provides historical context for today's thriving, ethnically diverse urban neighborhoods in New York and elsewhere. Read More30 Years Of Black Presidents
Barack Obama is not the first black President Americans have seen. At least not if you count the characters created by black comedians over the past several decades. Such portrayals, while intended to provoke laughter, have also illuminated the changing racial boundaries in the U.S. and provided opportunities for students and others to talk more openly about race and racism. Read MoreThe World At The U.S.-Mexican Border
"Second-tier cities" are multiplying in the developing world, largely due to growth in industry and population. Reynosa, Tamaulipas on the border of Mexico and the United States, illustrates the social tensions and cultural clashes common in the urban developing world. While some groups prosper, others suffer amidst poor work and living conditions and struggle to keep long- held cultural practices alive. Read MoreThe Roots Of Astroturfing
Political actions by corporations designed to look like bottom-up activism are not a new phenomenon. An example from the early 1900s demonstrates that business leaders have long been promoting the notion that one need not sacrifice doing well by doing good. Read MoreAging, Gran Torino-Style
More than a feel-good story, Gran Torino presents viewers with a realistic portrait of the challenges of growing old in America. Clint Eastwood's Walt represents the possibilities, as well as the obstacles, of old age. Read MoreResurrecting Martin Luther King
Controversy over the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, offers a case study in contested collective memory. Debate over whether or not the site of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s death is the appropriate venue for commemorating his legacy reveals how collective memory is produced even in the struggles over what to remember and where. Read MoreTo Live and Dine in Kogi L.A.
While praised for being a more youthful, multiethnic, and tech savvy form of food delivery, Kogi trucks providing ethnic fusion street food in Los Angeles also illustrate the persistence of socioeconomic divisions in urban life. According to Oliver Wang, Kogi demonstrates that there are still lines that aren't crossed when it comes to urban ethnic relations. Read More