Category: Culture
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Futurist and Culture Critic Ted Gioia on Cycles, Decline, and the Rise of Microculture
How can we best understand the current cultural landscape and what it means for the future? The Rick Beato interview of Ted Gioia, two thought leaders in the music and cultural sphere, revealed several key insights on the cyclical nature of cultural trends, the decline of traditional media, and the…
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Writing Peer Review in the Social Sciences: Constructive, Honest, and Respectful
Peer review is a fundamental activity in social science. Whether you are a student or a seasoned professor, constructive feedback on your article by your colleagues is a necessary step in the writing process. A hallmark of feedback is an honest assessment of the strengths and limitations of the work…
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Predicting the Future: Wired Magazine, 2022
The Wired World in 2022 predicted the technological advances and technology-driven changes that will make headlines next year. I read them and made notes so you don’t have to. Here they are. Technology By safe, they mean more welcoming to marginalised groups. How? She doesn’t say. 2. “Tech will get…
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Lone Wolf & Cub: Power, Masculinity, and the Graphic Novel
Lone Wolf & Cub, an iconic Japanese manga first published in 1970, remains a classic because it is a work of art, because it pays exquisite attention to historical detail, and because it taps into men’s desire for honor, power, and violence. Lone Wolf & Cub is perfect for sociological…
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A Weird Tale, Fun & Grim : Pom Poko (1994)
Japan’s famed film company Studio Ghibli created many modern animated classics. Some have a save-the-environment message, but Pom Poko (1994) is rare in that it is whimsical, grim… and, to my Western mind, weird. Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) was about the after-effects of environmental…
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Chase’s Dreamscape: The Many Saints of Newark (2021)
From the first frame, fans of The Sopranos already knew what will happen to “Gentleman” Dickie Moltisanti in David Chase’s The Many Saints of Newark, and fans of the mafia films of yore could’ve guessed. We’ve known it since the 1950s, when the Comics Code of Authority cracked down on…
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“Running on Empty” is the Quintessential 1970s American Anthem
“Looking out at the road rushing under my wheelsLooking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields” It was 1977 Jackson Browne’s “Running on Empty” starts like any awesome 1970s rock song should: Upbeat drums, slide guitar, and piano, with simple lyrics about wheels and summer. And that…
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History of the Occult (2020): A Political Horror Film
History of the Occult is a thought-provoking Argentinian thriller & political horror film. It was directed by Cristian Ponce, made in 2020, and is streaming now (I saw it on HBO Max). Instead of slashers and jump scares, the low-budget/high-concept History of the Occult (original title: Historia de lo Oculto)…
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When I Was a Child I Read Blogs
Books bind us together, those who have read the same ones. But few of us have read the same ones. Those that do move in the same circles, or pods, or bubbles, and rarely do we find a kindred spirit with a different library. Its a shame because, as Danny…
The Sociology Place 