Noah Berlatsky

Rather than seeing Beyoncé's sexual performance as linked to destruction, we can consider whether eroticism might be an alternative to violence.

The history of pop music, and of black pop music in particular, has always been gay history.

Metal aggression isn't sexual, but existential. As a result, women in the genre are both rare and unexpectedly equal.

Fans of Batgirl are fans of Batgirl. They buy her comic to see her being heroic, not to see her being a slasher movie victim.

The founder of the brilliant fyeahblackrockmusic Tumblr talks racial politics, Kelis, and . . . the Doobie Brothers?

Can a popular author also be celebrated for literary quality? Not if that author is a woman like Austen.

Who is memorialized in death has everything to do with race, class . . . and who you were in life.

Art without politics actually results in a sweeping Puritanism. For art to have power, it needs to engage with power, with politics.

"The look on Miley's face during Nicki Minaj's savage, expletive-laden rant says it all," Salon tweeted the day after the VMAs. Less than 140 characters, but still enough to link a black woman to a longstanding racial slur.

Some love stories don't end happily. So why do so many romance novels insist they do?