An Introduction To Popular Culture In The Us

Winner of the Popular Culture Association's 2018 John G. Cawelti Award for the Best Textbook / Primer What is popular culture? Why study popular culture in an academic context? An Introduction to Popular Culture in the US: People, Politics, and Power introduces and explores the history and contemporary analysis of popular culture in the United States. In situating popular culture as lived experience through the activities, objects, and distractions of everyday life, the authors work to broaden the understanding of culture beyond a focus solely on media texts, taking an interdisciplinary approach to analyze American culture, its rituals, beliefs, and the objects that shape its existence. After building a foundation of the history of popular culture as an academic discipline, the book looks broadly at cultural myths and the institutional structures, genres, industries, and people that shape the mindset of popular culture in the United States. It then becomes more focused with an examination of identity, exploring the ways in which these myths and mindset are internalized, practiced, and shaped by individuals. The book concludes by connecting the broad understanding of popular culture and the unique individual experience with chapters dedicated to the objects, communities, and celebrations of everyday life. This approach to the field of study explores all matters of culture in a way that is accessible and relevant to individuals in and outside of the classroom.

Immigration and American Popular Culture looks at the relationship between American immigrants and the popular culture industry in the twentieth century. Through a series of case studies, Rachel Rubin and Jeffrey Melnick uncover how particular trends in popular culture-such as portrayals of European immigrants as gangsters in 1930s cinema, the zoot suits of the 1940s, the influence of Jamaican Americans on rap in the 1970s, and cyberpunk and Asian American zines in the 1990s-have their roots in the complex socio-political nature of immigration in America. Supplemented by a timeline of key events, Immigration and American Popular Culture offers a unique history of twentieth-century U.S. immigration and an essential introduction to the study of popular culture.

This volume is an authoritative introduction to the history of African Americans in US popular culture, examining its development from the early nineteenth century to the present. Kevern Verney examines: * the role and significance of race in all major forms of popular culture, including sport, film, television, radio and music * how the entertainment industry has encouraged racism through misrepresentations and caricatured images of African Americans. African Americans have made a unique contribution to the richness and diversity of US popular culture. Rooted in African society and traditions, black slaves in America created a dynamic culture which continues to evolve. Present day hip-hop and rap music are still shaped by the historical experience of slavery and the ongoing will to oppose oppression and racism. Any student of African-American history or cultural studies will find this a fascinating and highly useful book.

In this new edition of his widely adopted Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, John Storey has extensively revised the text throughout. Like previous editions, the book presents a clear and critical survey of competing theories of, and various approaches to, popular culture. New to this edition: Extensively revised, rewritten, and updated Improved and expanded content throughout including a new chapter on psychoanalysis and a new section on post-Marxism and the global postmodern Closer explicit links to the new edition companion reader Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader More illustrative diagrams and images Fully revised, improved, and updated companion web site Ideal for courses in: cultural studies media studies communication studies sociology of culture popular culture visual studies cultural criticism

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 On February 1, 2015, the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots met in the Super Bowl. The game was watched by an estimated 114 million people, making it the most-watched show in US television history. The commercials, however, were sad and lossy. #2 This book is about examining what we as a culture preoccupy ourselves with on a daily basis. By examining what it is that we as a culture preoccupy ourselves with, we can better understand that culture and our place within it. #3 The term popular culture is used to describe media distractions. The study of popular culture is much more than keeping up with the Kardashians. #4 The academic study of popular culture was born in the 1960s as a response to the cultural climate of the turbulent 1960s.

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.

This book details many aspects of Latin American culture as experienced by millions of people living in Central and South America. The author argues that despite early and considerable European influences on the region, indigenous Latin American traditions still characterize much of the social and artistic heritage of the Latin American countries. Several chapters provide detailed accounts of daily life, including descriptions of contemporary dress, mealtime traditions, transportation, and traditional ways of conducting business. Other chapters focus on the cultural significance of the popular music, art, and literature prevalent in each Latin American country. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Pop Culture for Beginners promotes reflective engagement with the world around us and provides a set of tools for thinking critically about how meaning is created, reinforced, and circulated. Privileging a semiotic approach, the book’s first part, “The Pop Culture Toolbox,” outlines the development of pop culture studies; explains the semiotic framework; introduces students to a variety of critical lenses including Marxism, feminism, postcolonialism, and Critical Race Theory; and then offers an overview of several pop culture “pivot points” including authenticity, convergence culture, intersectionality, intertextuality, and subculture. The book’s second part provides a series of units, prepared in consultation with subject area experts, built around topics central to popular culture studies: television and film, music, comics, gaming, social media, and fandom. Each chapter includes “Your Turn” activities and discussion questions, as well as possible assignments and suggestions for further reading. The unit chapters in part two also include enabling questions as beginning points for thinking critically and sample readings demonstrating relevant scholarly approaches to popular culture; important vocabulary terms throughout are included in a substantive glossary at the end.