Culture Essays

How an Oxford don is helping the tech giant understand the nature of modern identity—and stay out of court.

• By Robert Herritt

Despise The Avengers? Loathe the snobs who despise The Avengers? You're not the first.

• By Noah Berlatsky

A hardened corps of volunteer editors is the only force protecting Wikipedia. They might also be killing it.

• By Virginia Postrel

Placebo buttons in elevators and at crosswalks that don't actually do anything are just the beginning. One computer scientist has collected hundreds of examples of technology designed to trick people, for better and for worse.

• By Kate Greene

Public health wonks have figured out how to influence Hollywood writers: Don't call them, they'll call you.

• By Maggie Gram

A neuroscientist in California is dreaming up a new visual vocabulary for cinema that could revolutionize the filmmaking business.

• By Jennifer Ouellette

How a culturally conservative effort in the 1940s backfired to create the greatest engine of pop music in the world.

• By Whet Moser

Popular culture has become obsessed with peering into people's bags. Disclosing the things we carry has become a national pastime. But what are we hiding?

• By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

Everyone knows computers are good at processing information and humans are good at creativity. What if it's the other way around?

• By Chris V. Nicholson

Stanley Milgram's test subjects were not the only ones misled by his famous experiments on obedience.

• By Peter C. Baker

Psychiatry is under attack for not being scientific enough, but the real problem is its blindness to culture. When it comes to mental illness, we wear the disorders that come off the rack.

• By Ethan Watters

If the South is really such a backward place, why is it so in love with Brad Paisley?

• By Dorothy Fortenberry

In a desperate attempt to engage with younger audiences, arts organizations are scrambling to make their productions more interactive. But who really is more engaged: A live-tweeting audience member, or someone staring silently at the stage?

• By Tom Jacobs