The Conversation: Stephen Sondheim’s ‘Assassins’ Lays Bare the Bizarre Role of Guns in American Culture

Long before the numbing regularity of school shootings, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and the current Supreme Court debate over whether to further relax gun laws, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim was sounding the alarm about the role of guns in American culture. Sondheim, who died on Nov. 26, 2021, had Read more…

Artnet News: How the National Archives’ Notorious Alteration of a Women’s March Photo is Part of a Long American Tradition

In this opinion piece co-authored with Peter Rutland, I reflect on the National Archives’ censoring of the messages on protest signs in a photo taken at the Women’s March in January 2017. This action was swiftly and universally condemned by professional historians and curators. It both transpired in our era Read more…

The Conversation: From Their Balloons, the First Aeronauts Transformed Our View of the World

Near the beginning of the film “The Aeronauts,” a giant gas-filled balloon called the “Mammoth” departs from London’s Vauxhall Gardens and ascends into the clouds, revealing a bird’s eye view of London. To some moviegoers, these breathtaking views might seem like nothing special: Modern air travel has made many of Read more…

css.php