Probing Popular Culture

In Probing Popular Culture: On and Off the Internet, one of the leading authorities in American and popular culture studies presents an eye-opening examination of the Information Age's influence on what we do, how we live, and who we are. Dr. Marshall Fishwick, author of the textbooks Great Awakenings: Popular Religion and Popular Culture; Popular Culture: Cavespace to Cyberspace; and Popular Culture in a New Age focuses his penetrating gaze upon the impact of the cultural icons and events that color the fabric of our lives. He examines the most recent developments, crises, and anxieties encountered in our headlong dash down the Information Superhighwayand illustrates the reasons behind the media madness. Peppered with quotes from influential figures ranging from Plato to P. T. Barnum, this book provides food for thought that will spark smart discussion about every aspect of popular culturefrom Henry Ford to Y2K, the impact on popular culture of the September 11 tragedy, and more.

“When it comes to seeing depth and lateral connections in the development of popular culture, nobody exceeds Marshall Fishwick.” -Canadian Psychology In Probing Popular Culture: On and Off the Internet, one of the leading authorities in American and popular culture studies presents an eye-opening examination o

Learn why Cicero is considered one of the most important individuals in all of Western culture! Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was a poet, philosopher, writer, scholar, barrister, statesman, patriot, and the linguist who helped make Latin into a universal language. His many influences in rhetoric, politics, literature, and ideas are seen throughout Western civilization. Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture explores the fascinating man behind the eloquence and his monumental effect on language, morality, and popularity of Western culture. One of the leading authorities on popular culture, Dr. Marshall Fishwick discusses the multifaceted man who may be, besides Jesus, the central figure in all of Western civilization. The author recounts his own personal quest of traveling the land and ancient cities of Italy, gleaning insights from people he met along the way who have knowledge about Cicero’s life and times. However, Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture is more than a simple search for the man and his accomplishments, a man whose mere words changed the way people think. This book shows in each of us the roots of our own ideas, beliefs, and culture. Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture discusses: Cicero’s rise to acclaim his affect on the language of popular culture common traits Cicero shared with Thomas Jefferson rhetoric, the art of oratory community two pivotal essays on friendship and old age vision of his reputation the search for peace Marshall McLuhan, Ciceronian Cicero’s Rome Cicero’s ancestral home of Arpinum Julius Caesar, politics, and the influences of Cicero the Roman republic and its downfall America as the new Rome much more! Cicero, Classicism, and Popular Culture is a startling, entertaining examination of the man who made Western culture what it is today. The book is insightful reading for educators, students, or anyone interested in one of the major forces in popular culture.

We immerse ourselves daily in expressions of popular culture—YouTube videos, hip hop music, movies, adverts, greeting cards, videogames, and comics, to name just a few possibilities—and far too often we pay only scant critical attention to them. The essays in this collection redress this situation by probing a wide range of topics within the field of popular culture studies. Written in engaging and jargon-free prose, contributions critically examine various offerings in film, television, social media, music, literature, sports, and related areas. Moreover, they often pay special attention to the ways in which these pop culture artefacts intersect with issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, and ability. Providing a rich mixture of broad perspectives and intriguing case studies, the essays form a compelling mosaic of findings and viewpoints on popular culture. Exploring everything from toxic masculinity in twenty-first century television programmes to gendered greeting cards and adult colouring books, this provocative volume is essential reading for anyone interested in that fabricated and all-pervasive environment we call popular culture.

Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture is a reappraisal of the controversies that have shaped Holocaust studies since the 1980s. Historians, artists, and writers question if and why the Holocaust should remain the ultimate test case for ethics and a unique reference point for how we understand genocide and crimes against humanity.

Drawing upon theories of critical legal pluralism and psychological theories of narrative identity, this book argues for an understanding of popular culture as legal authority, unmediated by translation into state law. In narrating our identities, we draw upon collective cultural narratives, and our narrative/nomos obligational selves become the nexus for law and popular culture as mutually constitutive discourse. The author demonstrates the efficacy and desirability of applying a pluralist legal analysis to examine a much broader scope of subject matter than is possible through the restricted perspective of state law alone. The study considers whether presumptively illegal acts might actually be instances of a re-imagined, alternative legality, and the concomitant implications. As an illustrative example, works of critical dystopia and the beliefs and behaviours of eco/animal-terrorists can be understood as shared narrative and normative commitments that constitute law just as fully as does the state when it legislates and adjudicates. This book will be of great interest to academics and scholars of law and popular culture, as well as those involved in interdisciplinary work in legal pluralism.

While usually associated with facets of commercial culture, pop culture can and must be analyzed as an important part of material, economic, and political culture. The author begins by defining popular culture, outlining criticisms, and examining the impact of globalization on pop culture. She then explores mass media and popular culture (soap operas, Egyptian melodramas, Afro-Cuban rap music, and virtual communities), artistic expression and popular culture (graffiti art and body art), and gatherings and popular culture (fast food in Japan, equality in sport, and wedding rituals).

Probing the Ethics of Holocaust Culture is a reappraisal of the controversies that have shaped Holocaust studies since the 1980s. Historians, artists, and writers question if and why the Holocaust should remain the ultimate test case for ethics and a unique reference point for how we understand genocide and crimes against humanity.