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The article presents the author's views on the school administration setting the guidelines for English Language Arts teachers to use pop culture references in the curriculum, to which she disagreed initially. But she started feeling that pop culture helps access prior knowledge and connect to students' interests. She gives tips on how to use pop culture in teaching, including taking the thesis point, evidence and commentary points, and giving photo examples.

The article looks at popular toys from Guanajuato, Mexico as aspects of popular folk art in order to analyze them as symbols of cultural expression in historical and social contexts. It describes toys as elements of popular art and then examines their production, focusing on the means of production, the aesthetic aspects, and also the ethnic origins and social conditions of the artisans who produce the toys. Additionally, the historical influences of the toys are discussed in relation to their representation of local culture and society.

The article discusses the importance of connecting and collaborating between the fields of arts & media literacy in the U.S. According to the author, comparing fine art to themes and ideas in popular culture helps young people to think critically about their visual environment, which encompasses a wide range of images from works of art in a museum to the television news. It is said that considering the connections between the teaching strategies used by the fields of visual arts and media literacy can build groundwork for collaboration.

I moved to Washington, DC, at the turn of the millennium. Shortly after September 11th, I found myself with a job to do, an artist in the center of power during times of crisis. I held a desire to engage, not as a passive observer, but with an active role--the artist's role, one who sees, listens, analyzes, translates and illuminates the dangerous mechanisms of the unfolding political situation in America. This resulted in the founding of the US Department of Art & Technology. The following narrative account is a portrait of the artist as mediator "between a strange, hostile world and the human spirit." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the connection between the rock band R.E.M. to the prevalence of "outsider art." R.E.M. is said to not only be notable for using media such as college radio and fanzines, but also for their allegiance to Southern culture. In the 80s, R.E.M. developed their visual presentation by working with visionary artists such as Reverend Howard Finster. This shaped the band's image through album covers, videos and promotional materials, and gave rise to Southern art in popular culture.

The article discusses the issue concerning the British art in Great Britain. It says that the crisis of art today is that of the world divided not only into different categories but arranged in a hierarchy by the West. Moreover, the situation in art today has become complex with its culturally diverse manifestations on both national and global levels.

The article discusses the issue concerning the neoconceptualism and the renascence of Scottish art. It says that neoconceptualism has been easily adjusted to the need for artcos to sell cultural services such as education and social inclusion. The author states that neoconceptualization in Scotland is often associated with a narrow and overdetermined way of working, fear of feelings, and direct material responses.

This article explores urban change in the Chinese context, specifically in terms of the creation of Beijing's Dashanzi Arts District, also known as 798. As the fusing of the cultural and economic now defines cities within the post-industrial economy, Beijing is recognising the symbolic importance of the arts within its financial system and urban image construction. The campaign for and establishment of the arts district demonstrates not only a political awareness of the economic power behind cultural districts, but also the increasing pluralisation of power within Chinese society. This paper will focus on how the 798 Arts District has been branded, first unofficially by its original artists to preserve the industrial area and then officially to promote Beijing as a global city. In relation to the cultural shift in Chinese urban policy and the global utilisation of arts districts in urban image construction, it will discuss how the area is both a result of and an influence on China's contemporary culture. It also explores the possible gentrification consequences of the area's establishment and places such a scenario within the increasingly global (yet still overwhelmingly Eurocentric) reach of gentrification research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many challenges currently face art educators who aim to address aspects of popular visual culture in the art classroom. This article analyzes the relationship between performance art and the MTV program Jackass, one example of problematic popular visual culture. Issues of gender representation and violence within the context of Reality TV and 'extreme' sports will be analyzed, with the intent of questioning the pedagogical limitations and possibilities of such topics within the field of art education, in order to provide art educators with related critical pedagogical strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how we can engage "looking-glass" youth in art through the visual narratives of the transforming self in popular culture. Part of the theoretical framework of two descriptive studies will be presented by focusing on the concepts of a permuting identity, prophetic reality, and technologies of self through the metaphor of the mirror and the screen of critical theories. Visual narratives from popular culture, artists' work, and children's play that use graphic or electronic genres such as comic strips, paper dolls, and coloring books will be described throughout. A special focus will be given on art projects on the topic of permutable identity, and on the relations between body and machine. In a posthuman era of mass communications and biotechnological extensions, art educators should encourage students to understand how popular culture creates identity by engaging them in playful yet critical practices of the transforming self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role and evolution of art in culture. The author believes that there are two aspects of culture: quantitative and economical, and qualitative and symbolic. A concern is presented that the quantitative side is eclipsing the creative aspect that feeds art in culture. It is noted that true art is not reliant on consumption but instead on appreciation. The author argues that if true art is to survive, one must learn to appreciate it and not see it as solely a commodity.

The article discusses tatoos and their commodification as a popular art form in United States. In contemporary Amercian society one can see tattooed bodies every where in media, Cinema where actors, models, athletes don tatoos and it has become a mainstream fad which was earlier an underground activity. The commercial marketing of various commodities like Tattoo Barbie, The Sesame Street Talent Show: Tattoo Tales, and the Power Puff girls' Ruff n'Stuff Tattoo Book, have popularizaed and commodified the tattoo culture. Global, cultural, political, and economic trends need to be considered in order to understand the tattoo popularity and growth. The article discusses the instutional renaissance of tattoo's and growing mass culture debates on this art form.

The article explains cartoonist Billy DeBeck's contribution to the American lexicon and American culture. DeBeck helped to institute the comic strip and received awards and honors for his style and his wit. A brief biography of DeBeck is given. Topics discussed include transformation in American culture, the comic strip "Barney Google," the character Spark Plug, the portraying of mountain culture in the 1920s and 30s, and the character Snuffy Smith.

Video games localisation is an emerging type of translation that has deserved very little attention from a translation studies perspective to date. This article discusses what is involved in video game localisation, what assets need to be localised, what the different localisation models are and what translator competence is required in order to localise video games successfully. It also emphasises the need to encourage the study of this new discipline and the training of translators who have the skills and competence required to face the challenges posed by this new translation field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an essay that examines the capacity of Mexican American popular culture in responding the contradictions of the information age by investigating the Homies in Silicon Valley, California. Homies is considered to be a popular line of plastic figurines that represents the inhabitants in an imaginary barrio. It contended that they concentrate on the historical contradictions between capital and labor. They also circulate on the global market due to their figurines.

The article features three vignettes that demonstrates how three young children created connections between fine arts and popular forms of visual culture. Reece, a seven year old boy, said that he saw Salvador Dali's Persistence of Memory in "Looney Toons: Back in Action," where Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck hopped into the painting. Seven-year-old Cassandra, when analyzing Jackson Pollock's Composition, compared it to "Daddy Day Care," where a young boy and his father were looking at an abstract drawing. Demara, an 8-year-old girl, saw Composition in the book "Olivia," by Ian Falconer where Olivia tried to recreate the painting on the wall of her room.

Today, art works take place in new temporalities and new territories. For instance, time speeding leads to the paradoxical wish of contemporary works of art to be inscribed in the long term of patrimony, and also to the expansion of contemporary art to localized and/or ubiquitous spaces away from art institutions. In this context, more and more domains appear that are open to cultural "mediation". These developments provide an answer that, though linked to the expansion of the web, responds to people's and communities' need to participate in the creation of symbolic forms from which they had been separated by cultural industries. However, the relation between digital art and the aesthetisation process in the realm of communication, as well as the link between communication and communicability (sensus communis), can offer a new approach to the cultural mediation science. The identification of common spaces for aesthetics and communication sciences could help us to deal with these matters: creation, reception, transmission and preservation of art works in the context of a globalized communication culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transits and transformations of art, as from the second half of the 20th Century, have generated a new dynamic for the relationships between tradition and modernity, globalization and fragmentation of the public, standardization and aesthetic innovation, rationalization and experimentation, cultural forms and industrial formats; at the same time, they have also highlighted the cultural value of technological transformations. This article considers the death and reincarnation of art. In this new art, exchanges speed up thus producing the 'in-materialization' of space and the compression of time, leading also to the banality of aesthetics, the convergence of rationality and narrative, the impoverishment of the aesthetic experience. Art is nowadays embedded in the culture but the boundaries of common culture have been blurred and the meaning of art itself is being questioned. However, as an opening to the issue, it is shown that the reading keys of the new friction points are closely related to the original art-communication-design scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The re-issue of a nineteenth-century FrenchDrawing Courseis the occasion for an examination of issues of‘models of good practice’ in current art teaching. These are listed as an expanded set of student-centred pedagogical paradigms, which embrace the forceful popular imagery of electronic games and comic strips. The formalist adaptations of comic-strip imagery by artists in the 1970s which challenged traditional divisions between high and popular art, are contrasted with the scathing Marxist analysis by Dorfman and Matterlart, Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic, which still has political resonance. The darkly ambivalent, if much theorised, appropriations of popular imagery by contemporary artists Pettibon and Murakami are adduced as part of an on-going problematic, where ideological readings are glossed over for fear of jeopardising the liberal consensus in art and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on innovations related to the field of visual arts. Fresh interdisciplinary approaches within the fields of graphic design and visual arts and technological innovations are prompting designers and fine artists to move freely between domains once considered their own creative turfs. Sampling and translating beats, signage, drawing and other forms of pastiche from the street, designers and fine artists who grew up in the hip hop culture of the 1980s and the 1990s are creating a new visual language.

This article analyzes the Civil War sculptures of John Rogers, particularly Taking the Oath and Drawing Rations (1865), his most critically acclaimed work and his personal favorite. In Taking the Oath, Rogers proposed a compassionate, conciliatory attitude toward the contentious issue of Reconstruction by invoking the model of a sentimentalized family. This work was one of about eighty ''Rogers groups,'' mass-reproduced cast-plaster sculptures that became a common expression of middle-class taste and values. Taking the Oath offered a prescription for healing the wounds of the Civil War while leaving traditional social hierarchies reassuringly intact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the recent decades art education has tried to move away from the trends based on practical skills and techniques towards a greater stress on interpreting and understanding visual culture, created by the mass media. This approach implies a revision of the field of study and a redefinition of goals, replacing the study of art with a study of‘visual culture’, a concept that better describes the daily environment of students and which reorientates art education towards social and cultural awareness. In this article, starting from Dewey's conception of art as experience, a theoretical framework is offered based on three ideas. Firstly, the subject of art education involves aesthetic experience, which includes both‘high’ art and popular culture. Secondly, it is necessary to reconstruct the balance between understanding and production in art education, in order to consider art products as narratives, stories or comments about life experiences. Thirdly, to review the educational function of art education in order to determinate its value for social reconstruction and for which Rorty calls‘self-creation’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides information on the experiments of Mari Kurismaa with language in the context of Estonian art. It cites that Kurismaa began her experiment on the materiality of language in 1977. Her experiments vary from small drawings to collages and happenings and she has also created word-pieces with plywood, wallpaper and enamel in the collages. The article explores on the relationship between Kurismaa's experiments and conceptualism. Kurismaa cited that her search for visual language was directly related to the Estonian language and that her works were strongly based on conceptual art.

The article examines "Porgy and Bess," the musical release, as a cold war propaganda in Austria. The U.S. made no effort to conceal its intentions in sending Porgy and Bess to Europe. The U.S. announced that the opera company was going to counteract propaganda of two kinds related to the U.S. The first that Vienna, more specifically Austria, has no real culture, or native artists of creative vitality, and second that the colored people have no opportunity to develop their abilities beyond a slave status. Still, for all that, Porgy has been a great musical work that has remained wondrous in its possibilities.

The article examines the trend of visual representation and the U.S. art policy in occupied Germany during the period from 1945 to 1949. The U.S. occupation of Germany in the immediate post-war period entails more than the control of the economy and the reconstruction of political institutions. The U.S. indifference towards the development of a new German fine arts movement stands in marked contrast with the attitude of the Soviet military government. The article concludes that the "anti-American" slant developed in due course, simultaneously with the U.S. decision to actively use the media in an information campaign to battle communism in Germany.

The article reports on the study of architectural history in Japan. From an early age, Japanese students are exposed to architectural heritage through field trips. Many facets of popular culture also feature architecture, including a broad variety of books, museums, and television programs. The Japanese interest in architecture begins in the late 19th century, when the government imports Western architects to help it modernize. Over time, Japanese architects such as Itō Chūta return distinctively Japanese architecture to common usage and foster an interest in architectural history. The author states that this helps to return a sense of national identity to Japanese architecture. The article also surveys materials and techniques used in architectural history education in Japan.

The article discusses the essays of Richard Shusterman in his book "Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art," depicting the future of aesthetics and cultural theory. The essays "Don't Believe the Hype," and "The Fine Art of Rap," inclined toward defending the philosophical legitimacy of popular cultural practices. In another essay "Beneath Interpretation," Shusterman puts on imaginative argument from pragmatic premises against two views of metacritical practice which includes the cognitivism which affirms fixed foundations for knowledge and the dialectically opposed position hermeneutic universalism, which asserts that there is nothing in consciousness that does not involve language.

This article examines the diffusion of Japanese television programs in Hong Kong and China. It demonstrates how dramas designed for the Japanese younger generation proliferated in the form of pirated video compact disks (VCDs), without being on the air and without marketing campaigns. Far from being cultural imperialism pushed from the economic center, the Chinese people have actively initiated the in-flow of these dramas. The complex combination of local demand, digital technology and the Chinese people’s highly developed literacy in regard to Japanese popular culture made this flow possible. Tokyo was not even participating in the diffusion when the dramas crossed the border into China. To better illustrate globalization processes, this article argues that we should not focus solely on the story of corporate-led cultural flow, but should also examine its twists and turns from the perspectives of unforeseen consumers and unauthorized intermediaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article observes the role of Argentina's popular theater in an attempt to create and maintain a definition of Athe rgentine nationality at a time when massive immigration was rapidly changing the nation. The theater played an important role in shaping national values. These stood against Jewish ethnicity, and the Argentine theater portrayed Jews as its antithesis. The authors of the time denounced Argentina's stance on the Jews and supported the ethnic character of the immigrants. The massive influx of immigrants, however, had a negative impact on the country's social structure. The same authors who once supported the immigrants now described them as white slavers, and Spanish or Italian thieves.

Explains the importance of approaching the aesthetic phenomena of popular culture from an environmental point of view. Definition of popular phenomena; Forms of mass art; Idea of several writers on environmental aesthetics and philosophy.

The article presents a philosophical discussion behind art projects focused on inventive forms of shared knowledge and interaction outside gallery and museum spaces. In the opinion of the author, the purpose of these art works is to turn the viewer into a participant, and to define the value of aesthetic experience. Also discussed are the works and theories of Singapore artist Jay Koh, which include the effects of cultural change, and the idea that art is a social process.

An essay is presented which examines English fiction and photography during the late 19th and early 20th century and how it reflects modernism's rejection of mass culture and femininity. Information is provided on the artistic history of fiction writing and photography, framed in terms of modernist views on original copies and subject matter as well as attempts by artists to transform popular media into art. Particular attention is also given to gender stereotypes of women in art.

The article focuses on the changes in technology and culture that affects art education. It discusses the role of technological innovations in the changes in the culture and values of people. It also discusses the effect of the changes in technology to people's conception of art and art education. Although the article questions the moral and cultural effects of technology, it also discusses the positive results of technological innovation in making people's lives efficient and productive. Art education's responsibilities in guiding students' vision and engendering critical visual intelligence through practice and discourse in response to the changes in the society are also discussed.

Copyright of RACAR: Canadian Art Review / Revue d'art Canadienne is the property of Universities Art Association of Canada / Association d'Art des Universites du Canada and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Author-supplied Abstracts.)

Copyright of RACAR: Canadian Art Review / Revue d'art Canadienne is the property of Universities Art Association of Canada / Association d'Art des Universites du Canada and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Author-supplied Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Political Science Review is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of International Political Science Review is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the use of body art during the Middle Ages, compared to modern commercial art. Contemporary popular culture has brought to attention medieval body-art reliquaries on display in museums. Included in the discussion are the Medieval reasons to use body art, noting their difference from those of contemporary artists, and that contemporary visual culture, increased violence in the media, and commercial jewelry advertisements has glamorized body parts. During the Middle Ages, usage of body parts in art was a systematic study of saints, relics, and cults.

The article looks at the difficulties of acceptance of the aesthetics of popular art and mass culture. Listed are the factors involved in defending popular art against reportedly intellectual critics. In the opinion of the author, one of the prime complaints against popular art is the lack of aesthetic challenge and induction of passive response. Focus is given to the key elements that cause active aesthetic response, which include function, form, and funk. Reportedly required is adoption by European intellectual aristocrats of the open American attitude.

The article presents an analysis of the differences between popular art and high art. The author explains that popular art includes multimedia work such as films and television programmes, as well as magazines and rock music, and high art includes sculptures, paintings, plays, and poems. Included in the discussion is the start of this distinction in the late 19th century in Europe, the politics of the differences, and the fall of high art due to the change from artistic values to economic ones. The conclusion reached by the author is that the distinction between popular and high art is a social one, and the character of art is based on the society in which it is developed.