Popular Culture

By Alex Fitch, University of Brighton | – December 28 2022 marks 100 years since the birth of the world’s most famous comic book writer: the late Stan Lee. The 1960s were Stan Lee’s most astonishing decade, during which he came up with ideas and scripts for the first appearances of such heroes as the […]

Books

Of Course there were Africans in Middle Earth, Just as there Were in Medieval England

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – American white nationalism has attempted to appropriate certain cultures, times and places as quintessentially “white,” and so it is no surprise that, as John Blake at CNN writes, there is controversy on the American Right about the multicultural casting visible in the Amazon Prime series Rings of Power, based on […]

Celtic Religion

In Celtic Culture, August 1 is a Harvest Feast for the Sun-God, Lugh, and its Traces are All Around Us

Hugh J. Curran

Orono, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – We are approaching August 1 which, in Scottish and Irish tradition, is the Feast of Lughnasadh (La Lunasa), also known as Lammas Day. It is one of the four most important festival days in Celtic countries and was originally meant to celebrate Lugh’s birth. Lugh (pronounced Lu or […]

Entertainment

Justin Bieber and Others Should Speak Out on Human Rights at Saudi Arabia’s Grand Prix

Human Rights Watch

Jason Derulo, A$AP Rocky Also Among Celebrities Slated to Perform

Africa

Dune – a prophetic tale about the environmental destruction wrought by the colonisation of Africa

The Conversation

By Oli Mould | – Director Denis Villeneuve’s most recent sci-fi epic is the latest attempt to tell the story of Frank Herbert’s acclaimed 1965 novel, Dune. The film is set millennia in the future when the galaxy is ruled by a class of family Houses. Each house battles for control over the most valuable […]

Climate Crisis

“To Dirty it!” On how For-Profit News Obscured William Shatner’s Climate Emergency Warning after Suborbital Flight

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Wednesday, pop culture icon William Shatner, Star Trek‘s Captain James Tiberius Kirk, explained the enormity of seeing the earth from a suborbital flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepherd space craft. Part of what he said when he returned from 66 miles up got lost in all of the news […]

Cartoon

‘I am that character’: New Marvel heroes battle underrepresentation of Native Americans in comics

Cronkite News Arizona PBS

By Johnny Messiha and McKenzie Allen-Charmley | ( Cronkite News) | – FLAGSTAFF – Asgard, Wakanda, Xandar and other intergalactic empires are well-known to comic book fans, but a new comic is hoping to bring readers back to Earth to learn about Indigenous heroes. Penned by Native American artists and writers, “Marvel’s Voices: Indigenous Voices […]

Featured

Remembering Stan Lee

Juan Cole

“There is only One in the universe who is All-Powerful, and his only weapon is . . . Love.”

Omar Khayyam

For World Poetry Day, Verses Straight From Persia’s Heart

contributors

By Salam Aleik | ( GlobalVoices.org) | – – How might someone in Tajikistan, the only Persian-speaking republic in the former Soviet Union, describe a beautiful and lively night spent in the company of family and friends? Perhaps he or she would use the word dilafruz, which literally means ‘firing the heart’. Azerbaijani folk art […]