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DLIELC Academic Library

Culture

 

Museums

  • Smithsonian National Museum of American History The museum’s exhibitions explore fundamental American ideals and ideas—such as democracy, opportunity, and freedom—and major themes in American history and culture, from European contact in the Americas to the present day.
  • Virtual DC Museum Exhibits   DC has many museums, including 17 Smithsonians. If you're looking for creative ways to get out of your house and into a new environment without actually leaving your house, take a virtual tour of DC museums.  
  • National Civil Rights Museum In Memphis, Tennessee, the NCRM is steadfast in its mission to share the culture and lessons from the American Civil Rights Movement and explore how this significant era continues to shape equality and freedom globally.

Journals and Websites on American and Popular Culture

  • Open Culture    The best free cultural and educational media on the web. 
  • Digital Public Library of America   Discover 41,762,742 images, texts, videos, and sounds from across the United States. DPLA brings the wealth of U.S. libraries, archives, and museums to your classroom.
  • Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture (1900-present)  Features peer-reviewed scholarly research papers written for an academic audience.
  • PopMatters    PopMatters is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis. With the mission to educate as well as entertain, their scope is broadly cast on all things pop culture and they are the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world.
  • ShareAmerica   ShareAmerica is the U.S. Department of State’s platform for communicating American culture, government, education, diversity, and global policy worldwide. We share compelling stories and images that spark discussion and debate on important topics like religious freedom, rule of law, economic prosperity, human dignity, and sovereignty.

  • Books on American Culture

Blurbs by https://www.amazon.com

Culture Smart! USA takes you on a tour of the core influences and ideals that have shaped this great country and have driven the behavior and attitudes found on Main Street and in the workplace. It looks at Americans at work, at home, and at play, and provides the visitor with an up-to-date cultural “road map” of this dynamic, multifaceted society.

This unique book paints a revealing picture of America and its people for those foreigners who will benefit from a better understanding of America.

Food and social historian Jennifer Wallach, sheds a new and interesting light on American history by way of the dinner table. It is, at once, a study of America’s diverse culinary history and a look at the country’s unique and unprecedented journey to the present day.

Whether you're a businessperson beginning to work in the United States or a foreign student visiting for a semester, this new edition of American Ways will help you navigate America's diverse and changing culture. 

For non-native speakers, here's a humorous approach to understanding common American customs and the expressions related to them. Customs are explained, one to a page, with conversational examples and whimsical cartoons. The authors also have written 101 American Superstitions and 101 American Riddles. 

American Popular Culture

  • NPR Pop Culture Happy Hour  National Public Radio's newsletter on all things Popular Culture.
  • IMDb  IMDb is the world's most popular and authoritative source for information on movies, TV shows and celebrities. It includes products and services to help fans decide what to watch and where to watch it. 
  • Google Trends  Explore what the world is searching for on Google.
  • Snopes Snopes is the internet's definitive fact-checking resource. When misinformation obscures the truth and readers don’t know what to trust, Snopes’ fact-checking and original, investigative reporting lights the way to evidence-based and contextualized analysis.
  • American Slang Dictionary  Dictionary.com’s slang dictionary brings you slang definitions, plus everything you ever needed to know about American English slang words.
  • Dave's ESL Cafe  Resource on American Slang.
  • Dave's ESL Cafe Resource on American Idioms.
    English Language Accents
  • IDEA  The International Dialects of English Archive is an archive of primary-source recordings of English-language dialects and accents as heard around the world. The recordings are principally in English, are of native speakers, and include both English language dialects as well as English spoken in the accents of other languages.