Despite the ideals of freedom espoused by Americans a prudish attitude toward sex and sexuality pervades public discourse. From victim blaming to slut shaming, America is simultaneously enthralled and enraged by sex. This complex attitude has been one of the driving forces of avant-garde thought throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries…
View More Everybody Wants Some: Sexual Energy and the American Avant-garde
In his recent performance at the 2015 Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards in June, Los Angeles rapper Kendrick Lamar performed the song ‘Alright’ while standing defiantly upon a defaced police car, an impossibly large United States flag fluttering behind him. The obvious political nature of both the staging and song choice (with lyrics like ‘we hate po-po/Wanna …
View More Kendrick Lamar and the Dialectics of Performing Hip Hop
Shortly after its publication in 2010, Jonathan Franzen’s fourth novel Freedom garnered critical praise of the highest order, with many reviews…
View More America and America