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Medieval Studies (Yes, Medieval Studies) Is Actively At The Heart Of Debates Over White Supremacy

The fault lies in contemporary politics, of course, but also in the origins of the discipline: “In Europe, academic study of the Middle Ages developed in tandem with a romantic nationalism that rooted the nation-state in an idealized past populated by Anglo-Saxons and other supposedly distinct ‘races.’ In the United States, universities, cultural institutions and wealthy elites drew on Gothic architecture, heraldry and other medieval trappings to ground American identity in a noble (and implicitly white) European history. So did Southern slaveholders and the Ku Klux Klan.” – The New York Times

Another WWII Movie? Yes, And A Necessary One

The movie Where Hands Touch is about a young adult romance – about what happened to the generation of biracial young Germans who were born to white German mothers and French colonial African soldiers during and after WWI. Director Amma Asante (Belle, A United Kingdom) “poured into it her fears that racism and bigotry are flourishing today. ‘We wonder about Nazi Germany and how it got that way. It started with language and scapegoating, and we’re using a lot of [that same]language today,’ she says.” – The Guardian (UK)

Did Leonardo Stop Painting Because Of A Fall And Resulting Nerve Damage?

Some have suggested it was as stroke, but he showed no other signs of impairment. His injury suggests it may have been something else: “The ulnar nerve runs from the shoulder to the little finger, and manages almost all the intrinsic hand muscles that allow fine motor movements, so a fall could have caused trauma to his upper arm, leading to the palsy, or weakness.” – BBC

Almost Thirty Years Of A Famous, Fan Fave Comic Series Focused On Latina Punks

The comic, or maybe graphic novel series, Love and Rockets is “the rare pop cultural artifact that renders Latinas not as archetypes, but as rich and profound human beings full of messy contradiction and ambivalence. Over the years, Hernandez’s characters have aged and their hairstyles have become more sedate. Some of their faces have grown angular; their bodies, more doughy. In the new comic, in which a group of former punks attempt to relive their youth for a weekend, a group of women joke about menopause in refreshingly real ways.” – Los Angeles Times

It’s Time For Summer Music Festivals, And One Has Finally Figured Out Equal Gender Representation

It’s a pop music festival, of course (where are we with that equal rep, classical and new music festivals?). But not of course, because no other festival has achieved anything like parity. Says the Primavera fest: “It can be done now and it should be done now, but you need to want it. We hope that our move can spark change.” – The Guardian (UK)

Sometimes, TV Lets People Just Be People

That is to say, occasionally trans women get cast as women, no need to elaborate, and sometimes trans men get cast as men, ditto. But. “While television has made great strides in L.G.B.T.Q. inclusion with shows such as Orange Is the New Black and Pose, when trans actors are called in to read for a project, they still find they are only considered for parts specifically written for transgender people.” –The New York Times

What Is A Character Actress?

Margo Martindale, who is so famously called that name that it’s her official title on the Netflix show Bojack Horseman: “Sometimes you do things for money, and sometimes you do things for money that are different, too. But I’m trying very hard not to repeat myself.” – HuffPost