Culture Raise Low Rethink High A Representation Of The Academic Potential Of So Called Low Culture

Despite (or more likely due to) being the culture which most affects and interacts with the masses, the broad and definition-evading category of 'popular culture' remains a second-class citizen in academia, relegated to a position of 'low' below a culture deemed 'high' and worthy of scholarly inquiry. This eclectic collection of essays aims to convince that this inequality must be addressed by exploring a variety of supposedly 'low' cultural types and texts through an academic lens, proving that so-called 'low' culture can be a valuable contribution to academic research. That said, raising the 'low' does not mean making it 'high', turning it into an elite category to be accessed only by experts. Rather, the authors are unswerving in their approach that academic writing and fan writing are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, it is their knowledge and passion as fans of their subject matter that has inspired their chapters, all of which draw upon their considerable experience of engaging as fans in what they discuss. All the chapters have been written by postgraduate students seeking to inspire a new empiricism through which their interests might be fully pursued in their futures as scholars. Emma Buchanan is a British postgraduate researcher and television fan who is currently writing up her PhD thesis on the topic of gender and change in AMC's "The Walking Dead" as understood from the point of view of Jungian depth psychology.

Many teens today who use the Internet are actively involved in participatory cultures—joining online communities (Facebook, message boards, game clans), producing creative work in new forms (digital sampling, modding, fan videomaking, fan fiction), working in teams to complete tasks and develop new knowledge (as in Wikipedia), and shaping the flow of media (as in blogging or podcasting). A growing body of scholarship suggests potential benefits of these activities, including opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, development of skills useful in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship. Some argue that young people pick up these key skills and competencies on their own by interacting with popular culture; but the problems of unequal access, lack of media transparency, and the breakdown of traditional forms of socialization and professional training suggest a role for policy and pedagogical intervention. This report aims to shift the conversation about the "digital divide" from questions about access to technology to questions about access to opportunities for involvement in participatory culture and how to provide all young people with the chance to develop the cultural competencies and social skills needed. Fostering these skills, the authors argue, requires a systemic approach to media education; schools, afterschool programs, and parents all have distinctive roles to play. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning

Taking a sociocultural approach to understanding violence, the authors in this collection examine how norms of gender, culture and educational practice contribute to school violence, providing strategies to intervene in and address violence in educational contexts.

A provocative book, an important book! jagodzinski's and Wallin's 'betrayal' is in fact a wake-up call for art-based research, a loving critique of its directions. jagodzinski's and Wallin's reference is the question 'what art can do' – not what it means. Theirs is an ultimate affirmation that uncovers the singularities that compose and give consistency to art not as an object, but as an event. Their betrayal consists in an affirmation of life and becoming, positing a performative 'machinics of the arts' which is in absolute contraposition with the hegemonic discourse of art and|as an object of knowledge and representation. This does not only concern academia, but also politics and ethics – an untimely book that comes just at the right time! Bernd Herzogenrath, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main (Germany), author of An American Body|Politic. A Deleuzian Approach, and editor of Deleuze & Ecology and Travels in Intermedia[lity]. ReBlurring the Boundaries. Approaching the creative impulse in the arts from the philosophical perspectives of Deleuze + Guattari, jagodzinski and Wallin make a compelling argument for blurring the boundaries of arts-based research in the field of art education. The authors contend that the radical ideas of leading scholars in the field are not radical enough due to their reliance on existing research ontologies and those that end in epistemological representations. In contrast, they propose arts-based research as the event of ontological immanence, an incipient, machinic process of becoming-research through arts practice that enables seeing and thinking in irreducible ways while resisting normalization and subsumption under existing modes of address. As such, arts practice, as research-in-the making, constitutes a betrayal of prevailing cultural assumptions, according to the authors, an interminable renouncement of normalized research representations in favor of the contingent problematic that emerges during arts practice. Charles R. Garoian, Professor of Art Education, Penn State University, author of The Prosthetic Pedagogy of Art. Jagodzinski and Wallin have written a challenging book on the theme of betrayal which aims to question the metaphysical ground of the practice of many arts educators and researchers. Dismantling the notion of praxis which assumes a prior will as well as the pervasive notion of the creative and reflexive individual, they revisit the notion of poiesis and the truth of appearing in order to advocate the centrality of becoming in pedagogical relations. Is it possible to develop pedagogies beyond those images of thought that attenuate learners, teachers and researchers? We need a new image of thought, or better, a thought without image, and this book asks us to take up the challenge. Dennis Atkinson, Director of the Centre for the Arts and Learning, Department of Educational Studies, Goldsmiths University of London, author of Art Equality and Learning; Pedagogies Against the State.

The interwoven futures of humanity and our planet are under threat. Urgent action, taken together, is needed to change course and reimagine our futures.

Now in paperback, Fredric Jameson’s most wide-ranging work seeks to crystalize a definition of ”postmodernism”. Jameson’s inquiry looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from “high” art to “low” from market ideology to architecture, from painting to “punk” film, from video art to literature.

Between 1873 and 1935, reformers in Chicago used the power of music to unify the diverse peoples of the metropolis. These musical progressives emphasized the capacity of music to transcend differences among various groups. Sounds of Reform looks at the history of efforts to propagate this vision and the resulting encounters between activists and ethnic, immigrant, and working-class residents. Musical progressives sponsored free concerts and music lessons at neighborhood parks and settlement houses, organized music festivals and neighborhood dances, and used the radio waves as part of an unprecedented effort to advance civic engagement. European classical music, ragtime, jazz, and popular American song all figured into the musical progressives' mission. For residents with ideas about music as a tool of self-determination, musical progressivism could be problematic as well as empowering. The resulting struggles and negotiations between reformers and residents transformed the public culture of Chicago. Through his innovative examination of the role of music in the history of progressivism, Derek Vaillant offers a new perspective on the cultural politics of music and American society.