popular culture

Zombie media makes clear distinctions between the human and the zombie—and killing them saves us. Yet, there are resonances of a more complicated vision of the zombie. What if remnants of humanity linger in those resurrected corpses? Or what if zombies represent something fundamental about humans that we need to examine?

I was most struck by one too-clever turn of phrase in the recent Pew Survey of U.S. Jews. The summary read, “ believing in Jesus, however, is enough to place one beyond the pale: 60% of U.S. Jews say a person cannot be Jewish if he or she believes…

Here, in the order in which the Ouija board instructed us to offer them, is an assortment of stories about ghosts, death, fundamentalists, and general spookiness.

In July 2013, Salt Lake City photographer Katrina Barker Anderson launched Mormon Women Bare, a website featuring nude portraits of Mormon women: “I think every single person has come out of this more comfortable in her skin, more sure of herself, more powerful.”

Why did this ultimately tragic movement, led by a young white man, appeal to so many African-American women?

As Pope Francis launches a survey of Catholic opinion, a new survey reveals a yawning gap between the leadership and British Catholics.

The scene opens in a bustling restaurant in Delhi, where a young woman leans in close to her grandfather, whose eyes sparkle with memories of his childhood in Lahore, Pakistan. He points to faded photograph of two young boys: “This is me. And this is Yusuf.” Every evening they flew…

Americans give a lot of money to religion—but not in the ways we usually think.

News last week that holiday decorations in Chicago’s Daley Plaza will be joined this year by a light-up “A” for atheism served as a reminder that though the anti-religion camp may claim victory over believers on many fronts, iconography is not one of them.

Thanksgivukkah is a way of being out, loud, and proud— We’re here! We’re Jewish! We eat turkey AND latkes!—but can Jews ever compete with the juggernaut of Christmas?