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This collection of insightful essays by outstanding artists, anthropologists, historians, classicists and humanists was developed to broaden the study of popular culture and to provide instances of original and innovative interdisciplinary approaches. Its first purpose is to broaden the study of popular culture which is too often regarded in the academic world as the entertainment and leisure time activities of the 20th century. Second, the collection gives recognition to the fact that a number of disciplines have been investigating popular phenomena on different fronts, and it is designed to bring examples of these disciplines together under the common rubric of "popular culture." Related to this is a third purpose of providing instances of original and innovative interdisciplinary approaches. Last, the collection should be a worthwhile contribution to the component disciplines as well as to the study of popular culture.
Since its birth in the 1960s, the study of popular culture has come a long way in defining its object, its purpose, and its place in academe. Emerging along the margins of a scholarly establishment that initially dismissed anything popular as unworthy of serious study-trivial, formulaic, easily digestible, escapist-early practitioners of the discipline stubbornly set about creating the theoretical and methodological framework upon which a deeper understanding could be founded. Through seminal essays that document the maturation of the field as it gradually made headway toward legitimacy, Popular Culture Theory and Methodology provides students of popular culture with both the historical context and the critical apparatus required for further growth. For all its progress, the study of popular culture remains a site of healthy questioning. What exactly is popular culture? How should it be studied? What forces come together in producing, disseminating, and consuming it? Is it always conformist, or has it the power to subvert, refashion, resist, and destabilize the status quo? How does it differ from folk culture, mass culture, commercial culture? Is the line between "high" and "low" merely arbitrary? Do the popular arts have a distinctive aesthetics? This collection offers a wide range of responses to these and similar questions. Edited by Harold E. Hinds, Jr., Marilyn F. Motz, and Angela M. S. Nelson, Popular Culture Theory and Methodology charts some of the key turning points in the "culture wars" and leads us through the central debates in this fast developing discipline. Authors of the more than two dozen studies, several of which are newly published here include John Cawelti, Russel B. Nye, Ray B. Browne, Fred E. H. Schroeder, John Fiske, Lawrence Mintz, David Feldman, Roger Rollin, Harold Schechter, S. Elizabeth Bird, and Harold E. Hinds, Jr. A valuable bibliography completes the volume.
Contains informal interviews with 13 significant figures in the development of the field of popular culture studies. The interviews explore the academic revolution inaugurated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the fields of the humanities and social sciences with the founding and subsequent influence of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association and the interviewees' thoughts about the changes. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This volume presents archeological studies in conjunction with cultural anthropological studies as a means to enhance popular culture studies. Scholar Malcolm K. Shuman points out that the study of archeology must be careful to chart the total human content of an artifact, because archeology "is a profoundly human (and humanizing) endeavor that cannot be divorced from the matrix of human life." The other ten essays cover aspects of archeology and cultural anthropology, and the authors are meticulous in studying their subject in context.
Although libraries and museums for many centuries have taken the lead, under one rational or another, in recovering, storing, and displaying various kinds of culture of their periods, lately, as the gap between elite and popular culture has apparently widened, these repositories of artifacts of the present for the future have tended to drift more and more to what many people call the aesthetically pleasing elements of our culture. The degree to which our libraries and museums have ignored our culture is terrifying, when one scans the documents and artifacts of our time which, if history in any wise repeats itself, will in the immediate and distant future become valuable indices of our present culture to future generations. As Professor Schroeder dramatically states it, "No doubt about it, it is the contemporary popular culture that is the endangered species." The essays in this book investigate the reasons for present-day neglect of popular culture materials and chart the various routes by which conscientious and insightful librarians and museum directors can correct this disastrous oversight.
How does rock music impact culture? According to authors B. Lee Cooper and Wayne S. Haney, it is central to the definition of society and has had a great impact on shaping American culture. In Rock Music in American Popular Culture, insightful essays and book reviews explore ways popular culture items can be used to explore American values. This fascinating book is arranged alphabetically for quick and easy reference to specific topics, but the book is equally enjoyable to read straight through. The influence of rock era music is evident throughout the text, demonstrating how various topics in the popular culture field are interconnected. Students in popular culture survey courses and American studies classes will be fascinated by these unique explorations of how family businesses, games, nursery rhymes, rock and roll legends, and other musical ventures shed light on our society and how they have shaped American values over the years.
Here is an accessible book containing strategies to help librarians expand their popular culture collections in an organized manner. Many publications explain why libraries should collect popular culture materials; this one explains how. Packed full of useful information, Popular Culture and Acquisitions provides numerous practical approaches to collecting this ever-expanding, often unwieldy mass of information. It aids both beginning and experienced librarians as they sort through the vast array of materials available to them. Discussions ranging from what to collect and how to collect it to what to do with the material once it’s obtained give librarians solid information on how to establish cohesive popular culture collections. Chapters provide first-hand advice on: the importance of collection development policies problems of budgets, storage, and preservation working with donors methods of resource sharing what to collect, for whom, and for what purposes the struggle for legitimacy competition from collectors and fans locating obscure acquisitions or review sources Popular Culture and Acquisitions also includes chapters on how to acquire specific types of popular culture materials, such as children’s series books, comic books, mystery and detective fiction, popular recordings, romance novels, and tabloids. Librarians attempting to collect such materials systematically will find this book to be an invaluable guide for their efforts.
From “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)?” to a list of all song titles containing the word “werewolf,” Rock Music in American Popular Culture II: More Rock ’n’Roll Resources continues where 1995’s Volume I left off. Using references and illustrations drawn from contemporary lyrics and supported by historical and sociological research on popular cultural subjects, this collection of insightful essays and reviews assesses the involvement of musical imagery in personal issues, in social and political matters, and in key socialization activities. From marriage and sex to public schools and youth culture, readers discover how popular culture can be used to explore American values. As Authors B. Lee Cooper and Wayne S. Haney prove that integrated popular culture is the product of commercial interaction with public interest and values rather than a random phenomena, they entertainingly and knowledgeably cover such topics as: answer songs--interchanges involving social events and lyrical commentaries as explored in response recordings horror films--translations and transformations of literary images and motion picture figures into popular song characters and tales public schools--images of formal educational practices and informal learning processes in popular song lyrics sex--suggestive tales and censorship challenges within the popular music realm war--examinations of persistent military and home front themes featured in wartime recordings Rock Music in American Popular Culture II: More Rock ‘n’Roll Resources is nontechnical, written in a clear and concise fashion, and explores each topic thoroughly, with ample discographic and bibliographic resources provided for additional research. Arranged alphabetically for quick and easy reference to specific topics, the book is equally enjoyable to read straight through. Rock music fans, teachers, popular culture professors, music instructors, public librarians, sound recording archivists, sociologists, social critics, and journalists can all learn something, as the book shows them the cross-pollination of music and social life in the United States.
Rituals are among the most enduring aspects of the African cultural landscape. They appear to exist outside of time, eternal and unchanging. Joseph Adjaye argues that while rituals may seem to be static, in reality, they are dynamic and changing. Through intense analysis of child naming ceremonies, libations, puberty initiation rights, funerals and two major Ghanaian festivals, Adjaye explores the interplay between ritual and audience interaction and participation. By so doing, he shows the many ways rituals have provided Ghanaians with a means to conceptualize and change their present and shape their future. In other words, rituals help individuals escape the boundaries of self by promoting a sense of collective purpose and agency. This book will appeal to not only Africanists, but to readers interested in the roles rituals play in their own lives and the ways that rituals encourage socially transforming initiatives.
From the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Farsighted Forget everything you’ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, unfailingly intelligent, thoroughly researched, and surprisingly convincing big idea book, Steven Johnson draws from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory to argue that the pop culture we soak in every day—from Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons—has been growing more sophisticated with each passing year, and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are actually making our minds measurably sharper. After reading Everything Bad is Good for You, you will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again. With a new afterword by the author.