Taylor Swift and the Too-Big Teenaged Girl
Taylor Swift made being an adolescent girl a romantic, beautiful existence, something to be cherished, not run away from.
Student Work: pop culture
The Metronome
I do not practice with a metronome because I want to become a better drummer. I practice with a metronome to practice focusing. To practice pretending that the world is objective. To meditate.
Together at the Movies
My nickname is, in many ways, a stowaway from another life. The simple, happy life that my mom and dad had built in the Rockaways of Queens.
Cultural Entrepreneurship
Episode 3 of Nucleus: The Confluence Podcast. "There’s value in the power of certain artists realizing that the market has that influence, and using it to their advantage."
I Remember
I remember burying the seeds every time I ate an apple. They never grew into apple trees. I remember going to the airport for fun.
I remember, on Thompson Street, the moment they called the 2020 presidential race. I remember the way my childhood home smelled when it was completely empty.
Editor’s Note, A Seat at Our Table
Writing and research from Shatima Jones's interdisciplinary seminars, “(De)Tangling the Business of Black Women’s Hair” and “Black Experiences in Literature, Movies, and Television,” published in honor of Black History Month, 2021.
Redefining Femininity
How Janelle Monáe and Syd of The Internet subvert expectations of Black, queer womanhood
Gazes on Black Hair and Beauty
The second installment of "A Seat at Our Table," featuring “Modeling Race” by Netanya Ronn, “Redefining Black Beauty” by Tatyana Tandanpolie, “Blackness and Colorism in Kenya Barris’s Productions” by Britney Agyen, “Pelo Bueno/Pelo Malo” by Melany Canela, and “White Parents, Black Hair" by Rachel Goulston.
Blackness and Colorism in Kenya Barris’s Productions
How is skin color treated in "Black-ish," "Grown-ish," and "Mixed-ish"?
Gender Expression for Black Queer Women
How are Willow Smith and Janelle Monáe doing gender expression in their music videos?
Yellowface
Some point down the line, an awareness manifested that I was not a part of the American ideal, or rather, that something bigger believed that I was not a part of the American ideal.
Celebrity Syndrome
"'Let me love you' is no longer enough for the fan. 'Let me love you . . . and you sure as hell better love me back' is the new baseline."
Disney and the Cold War
How Walt Disney's anti-Communist beliefs permeated his company and its cultural products