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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 cont...
An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture presents a critical assessment of the major ways in which popular culture has been interpreted, and suggests how it may be more usefully studied.
Popular Culture: A Reader helps students understand the pervasive role of popular culture and the processes that constitute it as a product of industry, an intellectual object of inquiry, and an integral component of all our lives. The volume is divided into 7 thematic sections, and each section is preceded by an introduction which engages with, and critiques, the chapters that follow. The book contains classic writings from all the 'big names;' plenty of contemporary cultural references that will appeal to students, including skateboarding, hip hop, fashion (Tommy Hilfiger, vintage) websites, Star Trek, Disney, etc; material organized in a skills-focused and learning-focused way; strong pedagogic features throughout, making this an excellent classroom text; pieces drawing on diverse national, disciplinary and subdisciplinary contexts; and sensitivity to issues of gender, race and sexuality.
Designed as a companion to Reading the Popular, Understanding Popular Culture presents a radically different theory of what it means for culture to be popular: that it is, literally, of the people.
Iain Chambers approaches the often overlooked details and textures of popular culture through a series of histories which show how it becomes continually remade as each of us defines our own urban space.
As before, the book presents a clear and critical survey of competing theories of and various approaches to popular culture. Its breadth and theoretical unity, exemplified through popular culture, means that it can be flexibly and relevantly applied across a number of disciplines. Also retaining the accessible approach of previous editions, and using appropriate examples from the texts and practices of popular culture.
This revised edition of the Popular Culture Primer is an introductory text that traces the history of popular culture and cultural studies. Besides covering the traditional subjects such as the influence of the Frankfurt School and the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, this book covers the cultural studies of science and technology, the biosciences, drugs, and sports as well as other often-ignored topics such as science fiction, fan cultures, and childhood studies. It looks at the impact these topics have on our understanding of education and popular culture. The Popular Culture Primer is an essential text for any class devoted to teaching the history and importance of the subject.
Popular Culture: An Introductory Text provides the means for a new examination of the different faces of the American character in both its historical and contemporary identities. The text is highlighted by a series of extensive introductions to various categories of popular culture and by essays that demonstrate how the methods discussed in the introductions can be applied. This volume is an exciting beginning for the study of the materials of everyday life that define our culture and confirm our individual senses of identity.
In this book, Martin Conboy unpicks the complex and dynamic relationship between the popular press and popular culture. Rejecting approaches to popular culture which restrict themselves to the contemporary, Conboy argues for the importance of an historical perspective in understanding the contemporary relationship between the popular and the press. The Press and Popular Culture offers: A much-needed critical history of the popular press -from the Early Modern Period to the present day A comparative analysis of the emergence of the popular press in the US and Britain An approach to the role played by the popular press in the formation of popular culture which emphasizes the use of language