When Bowie sang of aliens, cross-dressed, or emptied himself of colour and light, he demonstrated the power that music, fashion and performance can have in creating a landscape of endless possibility.
A number of high-profile trans people have come out in recent months, such as Cate McGregor and Caitlyn Jenner. Do these big media moments help advance trans rights across society?
Nutrition celebrities often promote strict diets that eliminate entire food groups. Not only are they based on flimsy evidence, some of their advice can lead to serious harm.
Declan Fahy, American University School of Communication
A bill before congress would create a science laureate position akin to the poet laureate for poetry. But some science stars are already essentially doing the job now.
Joe Cocker, the Sheffield singer who died on December 22, will always be remembered as one of the most searing, unforgettable voices of the past forty years. Ten of his best songs can be found here. “Mad…
It really doesn’t matter if you don’t like this song. It doesn’t matter if you hate the artists. What matters is that you buy the record. So said the Irish songwriter Bob Geldof last weekend, in anticipation…
The fame of Lady Gaga is the stand-out phenomenon of 21st-century celebrity – the go-to example for any commentator. But in a recent interview for 60 Minutes she complained that being so famous wasn’t…
Legal star power is being deployed in the form of the very well-known London barristers, Geoffrey Robertson QC and Amal Alamuddin, in Greece’s latest attempt to have the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles returned…
Every October, some unsuspecting writer gets a phone call from the secretary of the Nobel Prize committee. And overnight, an averagely respected author is turned into a global literary celebrity. Quite…
Autonomy is patriarchy’s supreme foe. It suggests self-determination, power, and control, and the “selfie” is a culturally ubiquitous iteration of autonomy. The release onto the internet of hundreds of…
The powerhouse of internet virality, 4chan, has achieved notoriety, and in a spectacular way. The release of hundreds of images claiming to show a pantheon of celebrities in various compromising, or at…
Recent reports of celebrities having nude or risqué photos of themselves leaked online highlights the serious risk of hackers getting access to our personal pictures. While many of us take inane and uninteresting…
Now that every celebrity under the sun and every Facebook user has posted a video of themselves getting wet, it appears we have reached peak ice bucket. A trend that started as a drive to raise awareness…