1984: The Year Pop Stardom Got Supersized

Forty years ago, the chemistry of pop stardom was irrevocably changed. Nineteen eighty-four was an inflection point: a year of blockbuster albums, career quantum leaps, iconic poses and an enduring redefinition of what pop success could mean for performers — and would then demand from them — in the decades to come. (Pareles, The New York Times)

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Alli Main
Harvard students are graduating ‘without finishing a book’

Chastising her fellow 25,000 students at the college dating back to 1636, Claire Miller has claimed that the university should require them to at least pick up a book. Writing in The Harvard Crimson, the college newspaper, Ms Miller has called for the university to make an English course compulsory for students, who pay more than $56,000 (£44,350) a year for their tuition. (Millward, The Telegraph)

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Most congregations avoid discussing politics, new study shows

Despite the incessant tracking of evangelical Christian, Latino Catholic, Muslim and other religious groups through the recently ended election season, a study released on Election Day by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research showed that most congregations are politically inactive, with nearly half actively avoiding discussing politics at their gatherings. (André, Religion News Service)

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Alli Main
The Movie That Mattered Most in 2024

In August, Zoë Kravitz released her directorial debut, a vivid, trippy, darkly funny horror film set on a private island owned by a tech billionaire, Slater King (played by Channing Tatum). … Blink Twice is a story about what men are capable of when no rules apply to them and their actions have no consequences. (Gilbert, The Atlantic)

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Alli Main