found meaning or pleasure in a cultural object, no matter how high or low brow, it was worth thinking about. My approach to Culture is a mix of my training as a cultural studies professor, where I learned that everything is interesting if you just spend some time analyzing and contextualizing it, and my years as a Culture Writer for BuzzFeed News, where I found that everything is even more interesting if you do some reporting and actually talking to people about it.

“Culture” can expand to include pretty much anything. Politics can be culture, celebrity can be culture, tourism and feminism and consumerism and work practices — all culture. Sometimes I’ll write traditional, magazine style-features, complete with original photography, that will have taken weeks to report. Sometimes I’ll do quick Q&As, or just a handful of links to the best stuff I’ve read on the internet. But there will always be at least two posts a week on the site.

The beauty of a newsletter is that I can still write about things even if I can’t think of a headline that will perform well on Facebook, and you can decide — instead of a Facebook algorithm — whether or not it’s interesting to you.

I love reader story ideas, and rely heavily on reader assistance when I report stories. If you have an idea for a future story, just email me at annehelenpetersen@gmail.com with “story idea” in the subject line.
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This newsletter used to be called "The collected ahp"