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A quirky, sensitive comedy about an escaped kidnapping victim's obsession with the children's show that was created for him, Dave McCary's film painstakingly re-creates the aesthetic of no-budget old-school educational [...]

Popular culture seems determined to endlessly recycle the tropes and icons of past decades, and the 1980s is often the era of choice. The latest expression of this nostalgia obsession [...]

This article problematizes the terminological apparatus put forward by Karin Barber's paradigm-making 'Popular Arts in Africa' by showing how it is interrogated by the cultural and social positioning of a Zambian literary archive from the early postcolonial period. The archive in question is the body of work published between 1964 and 1975 in the Lusaka-based journal New Writing from Zambia (NWZ), produced and circulated by members of a literary collective called the New Writers Group. The journal published poetry, short fiction, plays, essays, and book reviews in English. The following article outlines the social and literary conditions of the journal's publication, and argues--relying in part on the methodological procedures inscribed in Barber's later work--that these conditions were productive of a cultural and textual attitude that may be described as local cosmopolitan. It then traces how the notion of local cosmopolitanism is articulated by some fictional texts published in NWZ, especially through the manner in which these texts imagine the notion of social change central to 'Popular Arts.' Key examples (drawn from the fiction published in NWZ in the late 1960s and early 1970s, of which the story 'Legend of Modern Zambia' by the transnational Southern African author Bill Saidi is emblematic) are provided by readings of two strategically selected stories: Winston C. Mulalami's 'Taken for a Ride' (1969), situated in the city, and Maybin Siciliyango's 'Tazara and Dawn' (1974), set in a rural environment., '[T]he key political question about cosmopolitans is: What do they do?' --SCOTT L. MALCOMSON (234) 'Africa was a small place then--or so it seemed, because it was one place, where [...]

I wrote a biography of Stephen Foster in order to understand popular culture, and the original impetus behind it was more contemporary than historical. (1) My own background was in [...]

In this analysis, I examine VHI's television program I Love the 80s as a form of postmodern history. I Love the 80s functions as public memory that is 'pure' intertextual pastiche devoid of any coherent narrative form. The show's celebrity respondents and the viewing audience share an affective relationship to the rapidly edited objects of media 'consumption' (television shows, movies, songs, etc.) encouraging identification. In addition, pleasure emerges from the playful intertextual bricolage of I Love the 80s. With a morally detached and irreverent perspective toward these memorialized mediated texts, the television series represents an ironic history of popular culture created primarily for postmodern viewing pleasure. As an accelerated history, I Love the 80s navigates an economy of attention via play with intertextual pop culture. The essay offers conclusions concerning the rhetorical understandings of contemporary public memory. DOI: 10.1080/10417940902741514

In India, cultural prohibitions on discussions about sexuality and violence against women have resulted in a parallel public sphere in which individuals make use of popular culture to resolve private dilemmas. In this article, I examine how female discourse regarding two highly publicized cases of violence against women in Mumbai employed the parallel public sphere, a cultural phenomenon that allows individual normalcy to be gauged as part of a broader process by which the silenced learn to use their voices only at certain times and in certain ways. [South Asia, sexuality, Mumbai, popular culture, Habermas, violence against women]

The study of popular culture has a long and intimate relationship to the field of cultural sociology, being both a subcategory of the field and a separate arena of inquiry taken up by other disciplines. This article examines the intellectual traditions that have shaped the sociology of popular culture, traces the points of connection and difference between sociologists and other scholars studying popular culture, and argues for the continued relevance of cultural sociology for addressing key issues and concerns within the realm of 'the popular,' broadly conceived. These developments include the rise of new media/communication technologies and the increasing interdependence between popular culture and other arenas of social life. Keywords: popular culture; media; production; consumption; populism

This introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Family Issues, titled 'Spaces and Places of Family Life: Cultural and Popular Cultural Representations of Homes and Families,' calls attention to the intersections of conceptions of families and homes and to the cultural and popular cultural representations of both. Two themes make up the focus of the collection of articles contained in the special issue. First, the included articles explore the pieced-together media production of real and fictional families and homes. It is here we see the location of home and family as not quite real, not quite fictional, even if the families and homes represented are nonfictional (such as within the reality television genre). Second, this issue focuses on the relationship between media-produced images of homes and families and real everyday experiences, including whether real families use fictional and nonfictional media representations to situate and define themselves as families. The collection presented here begins to answer the question, What are the forms and locations in which popular culture and cultural definitions of homes and families shape each other? Keywords: space and place; popular culture; public and private; home; family; culture: reality television

Data from motion pictures are investigated to examine the association between expert judgment and popular appeal in popular culture. Films that get favorable expert judgment tend to get approval from ordinary consumers , showing that consumers have 'good taste' as well.

The article examines the construction of critical, resistant identities among supporters of the powerful Scottish football club, Rangers. The analysis is underpinned by two general arguments relating to identity construction: (1) the need to examine carefully the cultural politics of relatively advantaged groups within the field of popular culture and (2) the need to explore how forms of cultural resistance and contestation are focused particularly on relations within the popular culture, rather than on forms of determination by the wider societal order. The article draws heavily on substantial fieldwork with Rangers supporters in the UK and overseas. The findings highlight the complex and contingent relationships between popular culture and broader societal forces, as illustrated by the diverging arguments of Rangers fans on the legitimacy of ethno-religious and market-focused identities within football. Key Words: popular culture, football, Scotland, cultural politics

More than 3.5 million people participate in cheerleading in the United States, with 97 percent being female. A staple of American schools, American life, and popular culture, the cheerleader, however, has received scant attention in scholarly research. In this article, the authors argue that a feminist poststructuralist reading of cheerleading situates cheerleading as a discursive practice that has changed significantly in the past 150 years to accommodate the shifting and often contradictory meanings of normative femininity. They maintain that the ideal girl of the new millennium embodies both masculinity and femininity and that cheerleading offers a culturally sanctioned space for some girls to embody ideal girlhood. They argue that cheerleading is a gendered activity representing in some ways a liberatory shift in reconstituting normative femininity while simultaneously perpetuating a norm of femininity that does not threaten dominant social values and expectations about the role of girls and women in society. Keywords: cheerleading; gender; feminism; girlhood; body

This article describes the meaning of incest in contemporary popular culture. The author explores how feminism and changes in systems of kinship and sexuality have affected present-day discourse on incest, comparing the significance of blood relations and notions of abuse in constructing incest. The author analyzes media commentaries on two contemporary incestuous events that generated publicity: Kathryn Harrison's memoir of a sexual affair with her biological father and Woody Allen's relationship with Soon-Yi Previn. The author explores how commentators framed incest as morally objectionable in reaction to these two cases. She argues that blood ties are prevalent, but are becoming less relevant to discussions of incest in popular culture, and that feminist constructions of incest as an exploitation of power relations have been powerful enough for individuals to apply this framework even when adults (rather than children) are involved. Keywords: incest; kinship; sexuality; feminism; child sexual abuse

This article discusses the findings of a study of reflective clinical social work practice with women who had experienced wife assault. Literature, practice, and research suggest that it may be beneficial to examine, within the therapeutic setting, clients' engagement with popular cultural texts and what they have learned from them. Through the process of engaging women in reflecting on their learning sites and negotiating images within their favorite popular cultural texts, it also became clear that it would be necessary to examine conceptions of hope. Thus, approaches to addressing hope within practice are also discussed.

The practice of surfing has often been at odds with the mores of wider society, to the point where suffers have been described in the media as rotten, long-haired, unwashed drug addicts, or as jobless junkies. However, in recent years there has been an increase in the popularity of surfing and an increase in the consumption of surfing related commodities. This increase in popularity is largely due to the marketing practices of the business interests that are involved in surfing, which has appropriated its images and sold them to a rapidly expanding and lucrative market. This paper will outline how the commodification of surfing's visual style, and the meanings that are symbolised by this development, have had a three-fold effect on the sport. First, surfing has been shifted away from the beach into quite different contexts; second, surfing as understood by the wider society has been altered and; third, the commodifying practices of business interests have transferred the symbolic ownership of the sport from suffers to surfing capital., Introduction In the third millennium, mention the word 'surfing' and many things spring to mind: surfing the net, windsurfing, sky surfing, channel surfing, surfing as a commodified form and, lastly, [...]

The term gangsta rap started to gain currency in 1989. Its first American broadsheet appearance was in the Los Angeles Times (Hilburn 1989), when the controversial single 'Gangsta, Gangsta' by [...]

Issues are presented concerning the importance of gaining competence in the understanding of youth culture. The origins of Hip-Hop and the influence which it exerts on youth culture and behavior are discussed.

The relationship between popular culture and high culture is discussed. The possible abandonment of high culture is also examined.

Movies, like books, can be useful and inexpensive interventions in therapy. The advantages of using movies in therapy are discussed, as well as guidelines for integrating movies as intervention. In addition, the authors conducted a survey of clinicians in order to collect their suggestions for utilizing particular movies with particular presenting problems. Results of the survey are included in the appendix.

Anthropological research on cultural producers is discussed, including music, video, film, visual arts, and theater. Topics include a situated analysis of cultural producers; producers in the 'culture industry'; cultural agendas and social transformation; the cultural politics of aesthetics, authenticity, and appropriation; and ethnographic innovations.

Independent record companies relinquish autonomy when they form partnerships with major record companies. The term 'indie,' which refers to the genre of music created by small, independent record companies, is significant because it was the first genre of music to take its name from the type of industrial organization that produced it.

The 1996 Port Moresby Show in Papua New Guinea is an example of a cultural show that was a meta-experience, in Victor Turner's sense of culturally stimulated action that 'distils […]

The fictitious figure of Jody in African American culture represents the predatory lover who will take advantage of a man's inattentiveness. Jody has been figured often enough in popular rhyme and song to occupy the intersections of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual identities. Jody blurs the Freudian distinctions between pleasure and reality and acknowledges the alterity of black female sexuality.

The American Dream of the 1950s was never viable because it marginalized blacks, women, other minorities and the poor. Also, it never asked for much input, be it tolerance or civic fairness, among members of society., The period between the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Korean War, particularly the years 1948 and 1949 - when my co-authors and I were [...]

This paper looks at how the Agta are perceived by non-Agta and the relevance such perception has on Agra involvement in logging, environmental conservation, evangelical Christianity, and hosting their admirers: the anthropologists. We focus on two groups of Agta: (1) the people of the municipality of Palanan, site of the World Bank and Dutch government funded Sierra Madre Wilderness Park, and (2) the people of Maconacon north of Palanan, the location of a defunct logging operation, missionary effort, and Armed Forces Philippines/New People's Army struggle. While inundated with outside pressures, the Agra people are increasingly asserting their own identity and becoming active players in a global and post-colonial context. We suggest that the Agra are not completely subordinate to their petty capitalist and farming neighbours. While the Agta are participants and consumers of global culture, they have retained a degree of cultural autonomy and an ability to create their own history., Introduction The Agta are an indigenous cultural community of the Philippines, found in the eastern ranges of the provinces of Aurora, Isabela, and Cagayan . At the end of World [...]

Empirical studies of environmental attitudes often ask what people want (Dunlap, Gallup, and Gallup 1993; Dunlap and Scarce 1991) but less frequently ask why. Perhaps it is because the answer [...]

Paul Gilroy's Black Atlantic has received considerable international academic acclaim. Within cultural studies, literary studies, black studies, Caribbean studies, American studies and anthropology, the book has been hailed as a [...]

Items of popular culture in Israel such as film, theater, novels, music and poetry indicate a trend which goes beyond Zionism and negative views of the Arabs. These post-Zionist materials are still very minimal in number and are authored by those who do not belong to Israel's leadership. Nevertheless, this trend shows that Zionism is beginning to lose its identity as Palestinians, some Jews from the Arab states and other Jews are starting to question the validity of Zionist views.

In the mid-1960s Asare Konadu adopted the pen name K. Bediako and submitted several of his 'light and perhaps a little bit educative' novels to the Presbyterian publishing house in [...]