Culture
Preacher's Daughter: Q&A with Lesbian Christian Singer-Songwriter Jennifer Knapp
In May, Religion Dispatches published my first interview with former... Read more »
Sexual Inadequacy: Bisexuality Comics!
The first panel of the third row is by far my favorite, contrasting the dominant culture’s reaction to two forms of sexual attraction. From private conversations I’ve had with gay men in the past I know that some of them believe that this is evidence that same sex attraction is easier... Read more »
Adventures in Feministory: Cathay Williams (a.k.a. William Cathay)
Imagine, if you will, that you are living in Missouri at the end of the Civil War (1864 or thereabouts). Imagine also that you are a woman without a ton of moneymaking options who is in need of a job ASAP. Oh, and you are also a recently freed slave living in a place and time where people are... Read more »
Isn't He Lovely: Bare Down There and Everywhere Else
While mulling over the male quest for muscularity a few posts ago, I brought up the notion of the “sanitized ideal” that has recently become de rigueur for the mainstream masculine body image. We’re talking hair-free, sweat-... Read more »
We're All Mad Here: The Dangers of Openly Identifying with Mental Illness
Fighting the stigma against mental illness is an ongoing battle, and often an uphill one, as illustrated by many of the posts in this series. Sometimes it seems like we make two strides backward for every stride we take forward in terms of reframing the way people think, talk about, and handle... Read more »
Preacher's Daughter: PJ Harvey's Apocalypse Now
Last week, I wrote about apocalyptic themes and imagery in contemporary music. In closing out that discussion (at least for now), I use PJ Harvey’s February LP, Let England Shake*, as a jumping off point to... Read more »
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Many characters on television are explicitly mentally ill, and they come in a wide range of presentations. Television as a medium provides a unique opportunity for long, complex character arcs, which can be good when a show wants to take mental health seriously and really explore characters and... Read more »
Preacher's Daughter: Love in the Time of Apocalypse
I agree that apocalyptic imagery has figured prominently in the public imagination in 2011 in part as a result of the anxieties of this moment in time. Nowhere has this been more evident than in songs about love, in which said love is either a distraction from or metaphor for the end times. First,... Read more »
Douchebag Decree: Michele Bachmann and the Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad HPV Vaccine
Sometimes it seems futile to try and separate the wheat from the douche from week to week in politics. You just want to give up. I mean why... Read more »
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