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My Mother Cleans and Starts the Gumbo

Karen Maceira Lindenwood Review
"What does it mean to have/a child in prison?" asks New Orleans poet Karen Maceira, observing how her mother answers and can't answer that question.

He's My Death, Too

Shehryar Fazli Los Angeles Review of Books
The lynching of Emmett Till some six decades ago still stands as a singular moment in the movement for black liberation, racial equality, and against racism. This new book revisits that history.

Marx on the Silver Screen

Bruno Leopold Jacobin
Raol Peck's attention to historical detail characterizes the film as a whole, and testifies to the clearly loving amount of research that went into making it. The result is an entertaining and surprisingly funny portrait of the young Karl Marx as the film follows Marx and Friedrich Engels and their joint struggle against various other contemporary socialist leaders, culminating in their collaboration on the Communist Manifesto.

Can quinoa solve the world's looming food shortage?

Henry Bodkin The Telegraph
Scientists who cracked quinoa's gene code say it could solve the world's looming food shortage. Quinoa has never been fully domesticated or bred to its full potential even though it provides a more balanced source of nutrients for humans than cereals. Researchers say that quinoa could provide a healthy, nutritious food source for the world using land and water that currently cannot be used, and the new genome makes it one step closer to that goal.

SNL Imagines Jeff Sessions as Forrest Gump at the Bus Stop

Bethonie Butler Washington Post
“Saturday Night Live” took a departure with its cold open this week, taking us out of the Trump White House — and into the universe of the 1994 movie “Forrest Gump.” Instead of Tom Hanks, it was Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Kate McKinnon) at the bus stop, eating chocolates and confiding in strangers about a rather momentous week.

For Worse, For Poorer, In Sickness

Stephanie Brown Green Mountains Review
Southern California poet Stephanie Brown knows a thing or two about a relationship that sours, suffers, and never recovers as it goes on.

Sisters of the Night Sky

Sam Kean The American Scholar
This new book tells the inspiring story of a trailblazing group of women astronomers.

Don't Let Oscar Blunder Overshadow Moonlight's Monumental Achievement

Steve Rose The Guardian
Barry Jenkins’s movie is a brave, brilliant work of art that also happens to be a black, gay story. What a shame if the announcement gaffe is what people remember about its victory. There were echoes of Hattie McDaniel, 76 years ago, who had to walk up to collect her Best Supporting Actress Oscar from a table way down the back of the hall and was seated separately from the rest of the Gone With The Wind stars. A moment of triumph tranished.

Jessica Henwick’s Iron Fist Role to ‘Inspect’ Asian Stereotypes

Brandon Staley Comic Book Resources
Henwick spoke how the series is looking to investigate the Asian stereotypes that spawned the character, rather than rely on them. When asked about concerns over the character’s Orientalist origins, Henwick recounted her own recent journey from actively avoiding Asian character roles to embracing them — so long as there’s something meaningful to say.