Where the Culture Wars Began

The Brian Lehrer Show | Jun 23

Isaac Butler, culture historian, critic, podcaster and the author of The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars (Bloomsbury, 2026) revisits the late 1980s start of the culture wars as the religious right took on the contemporary art world.

Photo: CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - August 21: Banned books are chained to a table in "JD Vances Livingroom" at the Hotties For Harris party during the DNC in Chicago, Illinois on August 21, 2024. (Photo by Nick Oxford for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

 

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