AI: Too Smart for Our Own Good?

By Michael Lederer

An essay ‘about’ AI, writ­ten ‘by’ AI. Maybe even ‘for’ AI? As my kids say, “Are we there yet?” It feels less like we’re cross­ing the Rubi­con, more like cross­ing the space-time man­i­fold. Our “Hal moment.” [Edi­tor’s note: Hal, the most infa­mous engi­neer­ing icon in literary/cinematic his­to­ry, who attempts to take over the space ship from the humans aboard.] Com­put­er both provider and con­sumer, what could go wrong? Read more »

The Emotional Men of The Flash (2014–2023)

By Veronika M. Heinrich

Pow! Smash! Punch! Those are expres­sions that eas­i­ly come to mind when think­ing of a super­hero. This is because heroes like Super­man or Bat­man tra­di­tion­al­ly solve their prob­lems with lots of action, some­times even with vio­lence. In the CW show The Flash, Bar­ry Allen aka The Flash takes a dif­fer­ent approach – he tries to under­stand the vil­lains’ back­sto­ries, and if there’s a pos­si­bil­i­ty for redemp­tion, he takes it. But this series doesn’t stop there – many of its char­ac­ters dis­play healthy mas­culin­i­ty. So maybe there’s anoth­er way to save the day.

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No Story, No Life

By Michael Lederer

Every­thing we do begins with a sto­ry. With­out sto­ry, we would per­ish. We don’t get off that couch and head to the kitchen unless we have first told our­selves a lit­tle sto­ry: “There’s food in that kitchen, it will taste good, erase the feel­ing of hunger, and thanks to it I will sur­vive.” We may not say those words out loud, and if we do, some­one should call a doc­tor. But at the most pri­mal lev­el, that sto­ry is told and its les­son heeded.

Cave art, Argenti­na, ca. 7,000 BC

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Jury Duty’s Ronald Gladden or How to Accidentally Become a Star

By Charlina Strelow

Remem­ber “The Tru­man Show,” the icon­ic 90s movie star­ring Jim Car­rey who slow­ly real­izes that his entire life is being filmed against his will and broad­cast to a mass audi­ence? Well, imag­ine that, but make it true this time.

The set­ting:

Los Ange­les. Four­teen peo­ple are called in for jury duty. Jury duty is part of America’s judi­cial sys­tem where ran­dom­ly select­ed U.S. cit­i­zens are required – unless excused – to appear in court and take part in a case’s verdict.

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Oktoberfest Beer and Blood Serves Up German Debauchery in Six Episodes

By Raul Quinque

 

My Tent is My Cas­tle, or, How a Volks­fest Out­grew its Roots. Cred­it: Okto­ber­fest 2013 — Munich Ger­many by Shut­ter­bug Fotos

What would Ger­many be with­out the Okto­ber­fest? Def­i­nite­ly not worse off, I’d say. Under most cir­cum­stances, I couldn’t be tempt­ed to watch a his­tor­i­cal dra­ma series with the Okto­ber­fest as a back­drop, but the Munich Wiesn innkeep­ers’ irate respons­es to the series have piqued my inter­est. Appar­ent­ly, they feel that the Wiesn is hal­lowed ground and that its past and present virtue must not be dis­graced. So lo and behold and with­out fur­ther ado, I present Okto­ber­fest Beer and Blood.

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From the Lifeless Pages of History Books to the Big Screen: Chinonye Chukwu’s Till (2022)

By Sabrina Völz

“The lynch­ing of my son has shown me that what hap­pens to any of us

any­where in the world had bet­ter be the busi­ness of us all.”

Mamie Till-Bradley in Till

Photo credit: Maxim Hopman
Pho­to cred­it: Max­im Hopman

The name Till is one that most Amer­i­cans and many peo­ple around the world will rec­og­nize from their civ­il rights his­to­ry lessons. In 1955, while vis­it­ing fam­i­ly, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy from Chica­go, was bru­tal­ly beat­en and mur­dered for alleged­ly flirt­ing with and whistling at a mar­ried white woman near Mon­ey, Mis­sis­sip­pi. His bloat­ed body was lat­er found in the Tal­la­hatchie River.

I must admit that when I first heard about the film Till, it imme­di­ate­ly sparked my curios­i­ty. Yes, I thought. The heinous crime that caused a media fren­zy and gal­va­nized the civ­il rights move­ment needs to be brought to new gen­er­a­tions. But wait. We live in an age of trig­ger warn­ings (state­ments that alert read­ers or view­ers to poten­tial­ly dis­turb­ing con­tent) and audi­ences with a height­ened sen­si­tiv­i­ty to vio­lence. So how can film direc­tor Chi­nonye Chuk­wu draw view­ers to movie the­aters and simul­ta­ne­ous­ly do jus­tice to the bru­tal­i­ty of that crime?

It also intrigued me that Chuk­wu placed Emmett Till’s moth­er, Mamie Till-Bradley, in the film’s cen­ter. If she’s men­tioned at all in Amer­i­can his­to­ry text­books, it’s main­ly to rec­og­nize the role she played in the deci­sion to show the world what South­ern hatred looked like. She was the dri­ving force to ensure an open cas­ket at Emmett Till’s funer­al. So what does the film reveal that most his­to­ry books do not?

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