DJ Screw, a.k.a. Robert Earl Davis Jr., changed rap and hip-hop forever. In the 1990s, in a spare room of his Houston home, he developed a revolutionary mixing technique known as chopped and screwed. Spinning two copies of a record, Screw would "chop" in new rhythms, bring in local rappers to freestyle over the tracks, and slow the recording down ......
An ethnographic study of how Iranian documentary filmmakers navigate censorship and creativity to shape civic discourse. Iranian filmmakers have overcome significant obstacles to create a distinctive, globally renowned cinema. Filmmaker and educator Persheng Vaziri explores how documentarians, in particular, have developed a dynamic and creative ......
Throughout the African American community, individuals and organizations ranging from churches to schools to drug treatment centers are fighting the widespread use of crack cocaine. To put that fight in a larger cultural context, Doin' Drugs explores historical patterns of alcohol and drug use from pre-slavery Africa to present-day urban America. ......
"Friend, asshole, angel, mutant," singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt "came along and made us gross and broken people seem . . . I dunno, cooler, I guess." A quadriplegic who could play only simple chords on his guitar, Chesnutt recorded seventeen critically acclaimed albums before his death in 2009, including About to Choke, North Star Deserter, and ......
Disability and Racial Dysphoria in Latinx and Filipinx Culture
An examination of the interconnectedness of brown-racialized people across multiple identities, told through case studies of television, literature, and writing. As a Filipinx immigrant to the United States, Sony CorANez Bolton has frequently been mistaken as Mexican. Dos X theorizes such misrecognition. What does it mean to exist in this ......
Disability and Racial Dysphoria in Latinx and Filipinx Culture
An examination of the interconnectedness of brown-racialized people across multiple identities, told through case studies of television, literature, and writing. As a Filipinx immigrant to the United States, Sony CorANez Bolton has frequently been mistaken as Mexican. Dos X theorizes such misrecognition. What does it mean to exist in this ......
From his formative years playing pure, hardcore honky-tonk for mid-'80s Los Angeles punk rockers through his subsequent surge to the top of the country charts, Dwight Yoakam has enjoyed a singular career. An electrifying live performer, superb writer, and virtuosic vocalist, he has successfully bridged two musical worlds that usually have little ......
Extractivism, War, and Visuality in Northern Kurdistan
Focuses on contemporary art and media to examine the role of visuals in environmental violence and war in Northern Kurdistan. Extractivism-exploiting the earth for resources-has long driven racial capitalism and colonialism. And yet, how does extractivism operate in a world where ecological and humanitarian sensibilities are unprecedentedly ......
An approachable ethnography of how grasshoppers are harvested, sold, and consumed in Oaxaca. Chapulines (toasted grasshoppers) are not a delicacy in Oaxaca. They are just food-good food-and a protein-rich seasonal snack that is the product of a long-standing industry based overwhelmingly on the labor of women. Jeffrey Cohen has interviewed ......
