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Home » Culture

Culture

A pace-setter among literary publications, the new MAYDAY Culture vertical invites and cultivates authenticity, curiosity, and compassion with well-rounded criticism and courageous storytelling. With an emphasis on diverse or marginalized perspectives, especially Black writers and LGBTQ+ writers, Culture explores race, politics, gender, sexuality, and ability across literature, cinema, television, music, art, and theatre, with an emphasis on contemporary and historical contextualization. We appreciate arts criticism that amplifies unique perspectives and complicates our understandings—whether through personal or braided essays or media reviews—and we regard this type of writing as an art form in its own right.

The MAYDAY Culture section is looking for enthusiastic, incisive cultural commentary and critical analysis. With an emphasis on diverse or marginalized perspectives, Culture explores race, politics, gender, sexuality, and ability across literature, cinema, television, music, art, and theatre, in contemporary and historical contexts. We appreciate arts criticism that amplifies unique perspectives and complicates our understandings—whether through personal or braided essays or media reviews—and we regard this type of writing as an art form in its own right.

We’re seeking well-rounded, literary pieces that challenge us and our readers. There's no minimum length, but we prefer submissions of fewer than 6,000 words. Please send only one Culture submission at a time.

We accept pitches, too! Review our editors’ statements below, and feel free to pitch to us via email.

Carla is interested in pitches ranging across topics of representation, race and racism, life and death, American policing, democracy, Election 2020, and more, according to writers’ passions and prerogatives. 

Clement is interested in pitches for enthusiastic and incisive arts criticism and theory, especially focusing on film, television, and music.

Sarah is interested in critically analyzing literature and pop culture through the lenses of social justice and intersectional feminism, in particular analysis of pop culture fandom, science fiction, television, films, graphic novels, and comics culture.

Sophia is interested in articles about literary and cinematic trends, intersectional feminism + social justice, forgotten queer histories, internet discourse, anything rooted in archival research, and anything else, as long as it’s well-argued or funny, preferably both.

Unmaking Whiteness
by Erin Monahan

January 14, 2021 Contributed By: Erin Monahan

The toxic, masculine white power displayed from the nation’s Capitol for the world to see started from a young age, within their families. Our homes are breeding grounds for this kind of white entitlement and violence. White people must investigate our complicity. Those who stormed the Capitol are regular, everyday, white people we greet on […]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Content Posted On: January 14, 2021

Re-defining Drag Transformation: An Interview with Maxi Glamour
by Robin Gow

January 13, 2021 Contributed By: Robin Gow

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity Robin Gow: It’s so nice to get to chat with you! I’m really grateful for this opportunity to delve into your work. I guess I want to start by asking where your drag name “Maxi Glamour” came from? Maxi Glamour: I created it when I […]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Content, Interviews Posted On: January 13, 2021

Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine
Reviewed by Sophia Kaufman

January 12, 2021 Contributed By: Sophia Kaufman

At the end of Ziwe Fumudoh’s Instagram Live shows this summer—in which she quizzed her guests on civil rights leaders, asked them whether they’d ever worn blackface, what they qualitatively like about Black people, how many Black friends they have, and whether they would commit to reparations, among other rapid-fire prompts often tailored to her […]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Content, Reviews Posted On: January 12, 2021

Juno Was Always a Trans Movie
by Robin Gow

December 29, 2020 Contributed By: Robin Gow

I watched Juno with my partner two winters ago, on her laptop in the living room of my first grad school apartment. This wasn’t the first time I had seen it, but it was the first time I’d watched it since I had come out publicly as a transgender. My partner, also trans, and I […]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Content Posted On: December 29, 2020

The Homosexual Romcom 
by Diana Hamilton

December 23, 2020 Contributed By: Diana Hamilton

I am grateful to Clea DuVall for affording me the chance to imagine watchable versions of Happiest Season, if not the opportunity to watch the one actually streaming on Hulu. Setting aside the obvious event all good Seasons ought to share—Aubrey Plaza and Kristen Stewart collaborating to bring the rating up to at least R—I’ve […]

Filed Under: Culture, Featured Content Posted On: December 23, 2020

(Still) Separate and Unequal in Boston Schools
by Shirley Jones-Luke

December 3, 2020 Contributed By: Shirley Jones-Luke

For African American and Latinos, there are two pandemics. One, viral. The other, academic. In communities of color, students are being attacked on two fronts. Just as African American and Latino populations are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 as compared to Whites and Asians, the former set lacks sustained support and advocacy in reading […]

Filed Under: Culture Posted On: December 3, 2020

Bury Your Destiels
by Kate Hochswender

November 16, 2020 Contributed By: Kate Hochswender

November 5th, 2020: the anniversary of Guy Fawkes’ plot to blow up Parliament, votes still being counted in the U.S. presidential election, COVID-19 keeping the world in quarantine, tabloids spreading rumors that Vladimir Putin might step down. Yet amid the constant flood of tweets that week about global uncertainty, a dark horse entered the competition […]

Filed Under: Culture Posted On: November 16, 2020

“The Sores of War” and the Surprising Legacy of Robert E. Lee
by Carla Bell

October 16, 2020 Contributed By: Carla Bell

  “…to separate and destroy families and friends… to fill our hearts with hatred instead of love for our neighbors, and to devastate the fair face of this beautiful world” – Confederate General Robert E. Lee, excerpt from a letter to his wife (1862) History remembers Confederate Army General Robert Edward Lee and his defeat […]

Filed Under: Culture, Essays Posted On: October 16, 2020

Margaret Sanger and Me: (F)actual History and Its Plan for the “Fit” and the “Feeble”
by Carla Bell

October 4, 2020 Contributed By: Carla Bell

What was Important to Me Then What was important to me back then was happy hour and high heels, Dooney & Burke, free entry at the club before ten, office hook-ups and rumors of office hook-ups, my hair, my money, and my time. I was twenty-nine years old and a paralegal in the premiere intellectual […]

Filed Under: Culture, Essays Posted On: October 4, 2020

Race Against Time: How White Fear of Genetic Annihilation Fuels Abortion Bans
by Carla Bell

September 28, 2020 Contributed By: Carla Bell

Editors’ note: The following article was reprinted with permission by the original publisher, YES! Media. In its original publication, the word “patriarchal” was added to the following statement: “White patriarchal control over the lives of people of color and their procreation isn’t new…” The author remains committed to the language of her original work: “White […]

Filed Under: Culture, Essays Posted On: September 28, 2020

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  • Unmaking Whiteness
    by Erin Monahan
  • Breaking Currents: eddy at M23
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  • Just Us: An American Conversation by Claudia Rankine
    Reviewed by Sophia Kaufman
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