Popular culture Books

Book SynopsisBen-Hur (1959), Jaws (1975), Avatar (2009), Wonder Woman (2017): the blockbuster movie has held a dominant position in American popular culture for decades. In American Blockbuster Charles R. Acland charts the origins, impact, and dynamics of this most visible, entertaining, and disparaged cultural form. Acland narrates how blockbusters emerged from Hollywood''s turn to a hit-driven focus during the industry''s business crisis in the 1950s. Movies became bigger, louder, and more spectacular. They also became prototypes for ideas and commodities associated with the future of technology and culture, accelerating the prominence of technological innovation in modern American life. Acland shows that blockbusters continue to be more than just movies; they are industrial strategies and complex cultural machines designed to normalize the ideologies of our technological age.Trade Review“Charles R. Acland has written an astute, masterful genealogy of the film critic's kryptonite: the blockbuster. Bringing clarity to the massive films that hide from scholars in plain view, Acland shows just how complex and unstable ostensibly self-evident genre and trade terms can be. Beyond a film history, this wide-ranging book offers a prototype for multi-modal historiographic method and incisive film analysis in an era of big data and digital humanities. Far more than an origin story, Acland's reverse engineering lays bare the struggles behind the management of Hollywood's blockbuster category, the fabrication of overdone artlessness. A must-read in film and media studies.” -- John Thornton Caldwell, author of * Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television *“No other book traces the emergence of the stabilization of Hollywood's blockbuster strategy as deftly as American Blockbuster. Charles R. Acland's powerful synthesis of historical analysis and cultural theory, along with his assessment of Hollywood's blockbuster economy—and of the studios’ prevailing blockbuster aesthetic—will have a significant impact.” -- Thomas Schatz, author of * The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era *“This is a stunningly insightful and comprehensive study of the blockbuster that contributes new historical, cultural, and critical perspectives on a definitive phenomenon in American cinema. Through impeccable research and lucid writing, Charles R. Acland ultimately shows us how movie blockbusters have functioned to drive and to legitimate the ‘technological exhibitionism’ that lies at the heart not only of the film industry but also of society more broadly, offering a rich assessment of why these films are among the most consequential popular art forms in modern times.” -- Barbara Klinger, Indiana University"A crucial addition to the burgeoning scholarship on contemporary Hollywood cinema, this deeply researched, densely reasoned book explodes a number of well-worn myths about the blockbuster film while advancing a provocative new thesis about its role in modern society. Drawing on a wealth of historical data, Acland demonstrates conclusively that the origins of blockbuster cinema lie not in the 1970s—as critics pointing to the mammoth success of movies like Jaws have often argued—but in the 1950s with the creation of such Hollywood super-productions as Ben-Hur. . . . [T]his landmark book illuminates much about US cinema and culture. Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." -- I. Olney * Choice *"Acland’s intelligent and unexpectedly absorbing book is the origin story of a World War II weapon that became synonymous with a postwar Hollywood economic strategy. . . ." -- Carrie Rickey * Film Quarterly *“American Blockbuster is an important study.... Acland successfully links midcentury Hollywood production history to today’s big budget spectacles and convincingly demonstrates their related appeal to audiences.” -- Richard Ravalli * Business History *"Acland's examination of the blockbuster film reveals much about not only the genre itself, but about the culture that produces and consumes this form of entertainment. For these reasons, and since the blockbuster has long-remained such a vital part of popular culture, Acland's American Blockbuster makes an important contribution to an ongoing dialog about the film category and its cultural impacts." -- Heather Duerre Humann * Journal of Popular Film and Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Part I. The Spectacle Industry 1. Blockbuster Ballyhoo 3 2. Industrial Regimes of Entertainment 35 Part II. The Rise of the Blockbuster 3. Delivering Blockbusters 87 4. The Business of Big 124 5. Hollywood's Return 160 6. Cosmopolitan Artlessness 191 Part III. The Technological Sublime of Entertainment Everywhere 7. The End of James Cameron's Quiet Years 233 8. The Technological Heart of Movie Culture 266 Epilogue. Exhausted Entertainment 296 Notes 305 Filmography 337 Bibliography 347 Index

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Book SynopsisIn Wild Things Jack Halberstam offers an alternative history of sexuality by tracing the ways in which wildness has been associated with queerness and queer bodies throughout the twentieth century. Halberstam theorizes the wild as an unbounded and unpredictable space that offers sources of opposition to modernity''s orderly impulses. Wildness illuminates the normative taxonomies of sexuality against which radical queer practice and politics operate. Throughout, Halberstam engages with a wide variety of texts, practices, and cultural imaginaries—from zombies, falconry, and M. NourbeSe Philip''s Zong! to Maurice Sendak''s Where the Wild Things Are and the career of Irish anticolonial revolutionary Roger Casement—to demonstrate how wildness provides the means to know and to be in ways that transgress Euro-American notions of the modern liberal subject. With Wild Things, Halberstam opens new possibilities for queer theory and for wild thinking more bTrade Review“Where can the wild take you? With Jack Halberstam as guide, to places fabulous, cruel, soaring, undead, hilarious, dark, seductive, promising, nonprovidential. Wild Things is a brilliant phenomenology of the (more than) human condition of bewilderment. Its critique of invocations of wildness tethered to colonial, racist fantasies also marks how the figure can contribute to forms of desire bent toward the feral, the incipient, the otherwise. Wild Things is an awesome trip.” -- Jane Bennett, author of * Influx and Efflux: Writing Up with Walt Whitman *“How does one learn about wildness? Coming from a longtime scholar of sexuality, the animal, desire, and anarchy, Jack Halberstam's Wild Things fosters a generous archive, favoring bewilderment over a ritual turn back to order and knowing. Following this book constitutes a kind of epistemological travel and culminates in a habit of sensation, a disorderly campaign, and a queer method that will stay with you.” -- Mel Y. Chen, author of * Animacies: Biopolitics, Racial Mattering, and Queer Affect *"[A] creative, discipline-smashing study exploring the human attraction to 'the wild.' . . . Halberstam’s approach is equal parts academic and poetic, making for a dense and, at times, beautiful text. This is a work that demands attention, which it rewards with both insight and entertainment." * Publishers Weekly *“In Wild Things Halberstam moves restlessly across literature, cinema, theater, music, and poetry, determining the various modes by which people have devoted themselves to, or been effectively written within, the incomprehensibilities of the wild, of wildness, and of bewilderment…. Wild Things (un)clarifies the wild as an always-present threat to modernity’s coherence, illuminating the anti-Black and heteronormative carceral logics at the heart of liberal democracy by unveiling those under common ways of knowing and being that liberalism seeks to obscure, incorporate, lock up, or destroy.” * Invisible Culture *"The limits of Halberstam's analysis are boundlessly educative and entertaining: one chapter calls out proto-queer male writers for their affinity and identification with feral falconry while another examines the nature of family pets. Within the realms of what the author himself calls a 'counterintuitive queer project,' Halberstam's intellectually engrossing phenomenology evokes thoughts of how the concept of 'wild' can be applied to creatures and concepts both great and small while inspiring spirited conversation and debate." -- Jim Piechota * Bay Area Reporter *"Wild Things offers readers and scholars working on environmental questions a vibrant archive for thinking histories of sexuality and desire alongside concepts of the “wild” and its disorders. . . . The text is especially rich as an archive of the ways wildness persists within and can be activated against modernist writers. Halberstam’s wildness is a morally ambivalent, non-identitarian invitation—one that might lead to bewilderment, zombies, children’s books, hawks, or any number of other queer, wild things." -- Julia Dauer * Edge Effects *“Through Halberstam’s examination of pop culture and political projects, his analysis is consistently brought back to racial tropes that define the socio-political state of colonialism today.... Wild Things is a reminder that critical scholarship’s penchant for world-making and un-making is a political imperative to thinking beyond our hegemonic constraints.” -- Jake Kyer Townsend * Cultural Studies *“The book’s first half is a remarkable example of ecstatic intellectual curiosity, flying high on seemingly perpendicular currents Halberstam teaches us to navigate with smooth and logical flow. . . . Halberstam wrote exactly the wild book he set out to write.” -- Nicholas Tyler Reich * Transgender Studies Quarterly *“With regard to queer topics, Halberstam has been an influential figure in modern queer theory and Wild Things attests to this status as it is steadfastly grounded in the scholarship of the field. . . . The author does not simply connect wildness with queerness, but braids the two strands of theory together thus expanding their discursive potential.” -- Constantine Chatzipapatheodoridis * European Journal of American Studies *Table of ContentsPreface ix Acknowledgments xiii Part I. Sex in the Wild Introduction. Sex before, after, and against Nature 3 1. Wildness, Loss, and Death 33 2. "A New Kind of Wildness": The Rite of Spring and and Indigenous Aesthetics of Bewilderment 51 3. The Epistemology of the Ferox: Sex, Death, and Falconry 77 Part II. Animality Introduction. Into the Wild 115 4. Where the Wild Things Are: Humans, Animals, and Children 125 5. Zombie Antihumanism at the End of the World 147 Conclusions. The Ninth Wave 175 Notes 181 Bibliography 201 Index 211

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Book SynopsisDrawing on interviews with industry workers from MTV programs such as The Real World and Teen Mom, Amanda Ann Klein examines the historical, cultural, and industrial factors leading to MTV's shift away from music videos to reality programming in the early 2000s and 2010s.Trade Review“Amanda Ann Klein's extended interviews with both participants and producers of MTV programming as well as her inspired and enjoyable writing make this book an important, compelling, and lively contribution to the study of media and culture.” -- Brenda R. Weber, author of * Latter-day Screens: Gender, Sexuality, and Mediated Mormonism *“Amanda Ann Klein's engaging book analyzes a specific phenomenon: MTV's twenty-first-century reality television programming. But her detailed and thoughtful account reveals so much about the history of a transformative television genre, the evolution of an iconic cable channel, and the construction of identity for an entire generation, making it essential reading to understand contemporary American media and culture.” -- Jason Mittell, author of * Television and American Culture *"My mother used to tell me that Jersey Shore would rot my brain; with Millennials Killed the Video Star, Amanda Ann Klein would seem to agree. In this release, the East Carolina University film professor helps make sense of the noise, walking readers through MTV’s evolution from music videos to scripted reality TV—maximizing stereotypes about race, gender, and class along the way, and shaping how an entire generation would come to understand identity." -- Emma Kenfield * IndyWeek *“[Millennials Killed the Video Star] is a fascinating analysis of media construction and presentation of identities, and how audiences respond to or reject those identities.... Klein’s writing is thoughtful and crisp.... Her writing blends an academic perspective and a fan perspective to produce a thoroughly entertaining analysis.” -- Fiona McQuarrie * PopMatters *"Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals." -- C. A. Nadon * Choice *“Through her insightful and engaging writing, Klein successfully weaves together industry studies, media and cultural analysis, interviews, and an entertaining retelling of her own personal encounter with Jersey Shore’s DJ Pauly D. The author successfully crafts a book that would appeal to multiple audiences across disciplines.” -- Abshi Iftin * Journal of Popular Culture *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction. What Killed the Video Star? 1 1. "It's Videos, Fool": A Targeted History of MTV (1981–2004) 24 2. "This Is the True Story . . .": The Real World and MTV's Turn to Identity (1992–) 57 3. "She's Gonna Always Be Known at the Girl Who Didn't Go to Paris": Can-Do and At-Risk White Girls on MTV (2004–2013) 89 4. "If You Don't Tan, You're Pale": The Regional and Ethnic Other on MTV (2009–2013) 124 5. "That Moment Is Here, Whether I Like It or Not": When MTV's Programming Fails (2013–2014) 153 Conclusion. Catfish and the Future of MTV's Reality Programming (2012–) 173 Appendix A. MTV Reality Series since 1981 189 Appendix B. Other Television Series Discussed in This Book 193 Notes 197 References 213 Index 233

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Book SynopsisKyung Hyun Kim considers the recent global success of Korean popular culture—the Korean wave of pop music, cinema, and television also known as hallyu—from a transnational and transcultural perspective.Trade Review“Hegemonic Mimicry presents a much-needed update on today's South Korean pop culture—one of the most fascinating epicenters of global cultural flows. Offering a probing insight into a wide spectrum of media productions, it is bound to be a must-read for those hoping to capture the symptomatic signs of the new millennium.” -- Suk-Young Kim, author of * K-Pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance *“Hegemonic Mimicry provides insightful, critical analyses of Korean cultural products explored through a variety of lenses: national identity, transnationalism, convergence, social class, Confucianism, simulacra, and cynicism. Unlike many previous studies, Kyung Hyun Kim's book is very effective in theorizing developments in hallyu and its global proliferation. Anyone interested in contemporary Korean culture will learn a lot from this book and enjoy Kim's ability to connect ideas and events in brilliant new ways.” -- Roald Maliangkay, author of * Broken Voices: Postcolonial Entanglements and the Preservation of Korea’s Central Folksong Traditions *“Hegemonic Mimicry is an impressive volume that outlines the reasons behind the recent global success of South Korean popular culture.... Kim’s erudition is considerable, something to be expected given his two earlier well-received monographs.” -- Keith Howard * Asian Studies Review *"Hegemonic Mimicry is a valuable and significant contribution to the literature on Korean popular culture studies by introducing the concept of ‘hegemonic mimicry’ in detail and approaching Korean popular culture in an interdisciplinary way. This feature of the book will attract scholars from various academic disciplines as well as university students from different backgrounds." -- Beyza Dogan * LSE Review of Books *“This book and its central premise will go far. Kim’s concept of and coinage of the term hegemonic mimicry alone will no doubt appear in countless essays, book chapters and discussions of South Korean popular culture. . . . Kim is the real deal, a genuine intellect and the book successfully captures the author’s voice and it is filled with insight that will be of interest to both cinema scholars and those who study Asian popular culture.” -- Robert Hyland * Asian Cinema *"Hegemonic Mimicry is a critical addition to Korean popular culture studies literature and will surely be an essential foundation for future studies." -- Jung-Min Mina Lee * Journal of Asian Studies *"A timely response to the explosive demand for a textbook that provides both historical and theoretical frameworks to analyze the global popularity of contemporary South Korean popular culture, including K-pop music, cinema, television, and online subcultures." -- Soyi Kim * Cultural Critique *"Hegemonic Mimicry is a timely book that provides an updated overview of Korean popular culture. ... [It] offers readers an insightful perspective on the media we consume every day." -- Sojeong Park * Korean Studies *Table of ContentsPreface: Writing Pop Culture in the Time of Pandemic ix Introduction: Of Mimicry and Miguk 1 1. Short History of K-Pop, K-Cinema, and K-Television 35 2. The Souls of Korean Folk in the Era of Hip-Hop 85 3. Dividuated Cinema: Temporality and Body in the Overwired Age 118 4. Running Man: The Korean Television Variety Program and Affect Confucianism 140 5. The Virtual Feast: Mukbang, Con-Man Comedy, and the Post-Traumatic Family in Extreme Job (2019) and Parasite (2019) 164 6. Korean Meme-icry: Samsung and K-Pop 195 7. Reading Muhan Dojon through the Madanggǔk 220 Notes 237 Bibliography 273 Index 289

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Book SynopsisKyung Hyun Kim considers the recent global success of Korean popular culturethe Korean wave of pop music, cinema, and television also known as hallyufrom a transnational and transcultural perspective.Trade Review“Hegemonic Mimicry presents a much-needed update on today's South Korean pop culture—one of the most fascinating epicenters of global cultural flows. Offering a probing insight into a wide spectrum of media productions, it is bound to be a must-read for those hoping to capture the symptomatic signs of the new millennium.” -- Suk-Young Kim, author of * K-Pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance *“Hegemonic Mimicry provides insightful, critical analyses of Korean cultural products explored through a variety of lenses: national identity, transnationalism, convergence, social class, Confucianism, simulacra, and cynicism. Unlike many previous studies, Kyung Hyun Kim's book is very effective in theorizing developments in hallyu and its global proliferation. Anyone interested in contemporary Korean culture will learn a lot from this book and enjoy Kim's ability to connect ideas and events in brilliant new ways.” -- Roald Maliangkay, author of * Broken Voices: Postcolonial Entanglements and the Preservation of Korea’s Central Folksong Traditions *“Hegemonic Mimicry is an impressive volume that outlines the reasons behind the recent global success of South Korean popular culture.... Kim’s erudition is considerable, something to be expected given his two earlier well-received monographs.” -- Keith Howard * Asian Studies Review *"Hegemonic Mimicry is a valuable and significant contribution to the literature on Korean popular culture studies by introducing the concept of ‘hegemonic mimicry’ in detail and approaching Korean popular culture in an interdisciplinary way. This feature of the book will attract scholars from various academic disciplines as well as university students from different backgrounds." -- Beyza Dogan * LSE Review of Books *“This book and its central premise will go far. Kim’s concept of and coinage of the term hegemonic mimicry alone will no doubt appear in countless essays, book chapters and discussions of South Korean popular culture. . . . Kim is the real deal, a genuine intellect and the book successfully captures the author’s voice and it is filled with insight that will be of interest to both cinema scholars and those who study Asian popular culture.” -- Robert Hyland * Asian Cinema *"Hegemonic Mimicry is a critical addition to Korean popular culture studies literature and will surely be an essential foundation for future studies." -- Jung-Min Mina Lee * Journal of Asian Studies *"A timely response to the explosive demand for a textbook that provides both historical and theoretical frameworks to analyze the global popularity of contemporary South Korean popular culture, including K-pop music, cinema, television, and online subcultures." -- Soyi Kim * Cultural Critique *"Hegemonic Mimicry is a timely book that provides an updated overview of Korean popular culture. ... [It] offers readers an insightful perspective on the media we consume every day." -- Sojeong Park * Korean Studies *Table of ContentsPreface: Writing Pop Culture in the Time of Pandemic ix Introduction: Of Mimicry and Miguk 1 1. Short History of K-Pop, K-Cinema, and K-Television 35 2. The Souls of Korean Folk in the Era of Hip-Hop 85 3. Dividuated Cinema: Temporality and Body in the Overwired Age 118 4. Running Man: The Korean Television Variety Program and Affect Confucianism 140 5. The Virtual Feast: Mukbang, Con-Man Comedy, and the Post-Traumatic Family in Extreme Job (2019) and Parasite (2019) 164 6. Korean Meme-icry: Samsung and K-Pop 195 7. Reading Muhan Dojon through the Madanggǔk 220 Notes 237 Bibliography 273 Index 289

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Book SynopsisMinh-Ha T. Pham examines the practice of social media users monitoring the fashion market for the appearance of fake knock-off fashion, design theft, and plagiarism, showing how it is critically important to the development of global fashion.Trade Review"Pham’s work offers a thorough look at how online behavior is shaping fashion industry actions and sheds light on the ways the current norms are failing some communities while granting protections to others." -- Sarah Bartlett Schroeder * Library Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction. “Share This with Your Friends”: Crowdsourcing IP Regulation 1 1. Regulating Fashion IP, Regulating Difference 27 2. The Asian Fashion Copycat 53 3. How Thai Social Media Users Made Balenciaga Pay for Copying the Sampeng Bag 77 4. “Ppl Knocking Each Other off Lol”: Diet Prada’s Politics of Refusal 99 Epilogue. Why We Can't Have Nice Things 125 Notes 131 Bibliography 147 Index 165

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Book SynopsisIn 2016, social media users in Thailand called out the Paris-based luxury fashion house Balenciaga for copying the popular Thai “rainbow bag,” using Balenciaga’s hashtags to circulate memes revealing the source of the bags’ design. In Why We Can’t Have Nice Things Minh-Ha T. Pham examines the way social media users monitor the fashion market for the appearance of knockoff fashion, design theft, and plagiarism. Tracing the history of fashion antipiracy efforts back to the 1930s, she foregrounds the work of policing that has been tacitly outsourced to social media. Despite the social media concern for ethical fashion and consumption and the good intentions behind design policing, Pham shows that it has ironically deepened forms of social and market inequality, as it relies on and reinforces racist and colonial norms and ideas about what constitutes copying and what counts as creativity. These struggles over ethical fashion and intellectual property, PTrade Review"Pham’s work offers a thorough look at how online behavior is shaping fashion industry actions and sheds light on the ways the current norms are failing some communities while granting protections to others." -- Sarah Bartlett Schroeder * Library Journal *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction. “Share This with Your Friends”: Crowdsourcing IP Regulation 1 1. Regulating Fashion IP, Regulating Difference 27 2. The Asian Fashion Copycat 53 3. How Thai Social Media Users Made Balenciaga Pay for Copying the Sampeng Bag 77 4. “Ppl Knocking Each Other off Lol”: Diet Prada’s Politics of Refusal 99 Epilogue. Why We Can't Have Nice Things 125 Notes 131 Bibliography 147 Index 165

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Book SynopsisHow online affinity networks expand learning and opportunity for young peopleBoyband One Direction fanfiction writers, gamers who solve math problems together, Harry Potter fans who knit for a cause. Across subcultures and geographies, young fans have found each other and formed community online, learning from one another along the way. From these and other in-depth case studies of online affinity networks, Affinity Online considers how young people have found new opportunities for expanded learning in the digital age. These cases reveal the shared characteristics and unique cultures and practices of different online affinity networks, and how they support connected learninglearning that brings together youth interests, social activity, and accomplishment in civic, academic, and career relevant arenas. Although involvement in online communities is an established fixture of growing up in the networked age, participation in these spaces show how young people are actively taking up new meTrade ReviewHelps those of us who are no longer kids to understand how their online and offline worlds connect. These global case studies give us insights into youth at the same time that detailed notes about how the authors themselves used their online tools to collaborate help researchers understand what is possible in a truly connected world. -- Cathy N. Davidson,Founding Director and Distinguished Professor, The Futures Initiative, Graduate Center, CUNYReminds us that education is not just learning, it is learning embedded in systems of institutional organization, cultural capital, and peer networks. Drawing on a multi-year research project on young people's behavior online, the book traces student interest in a remarkable range of topicsfabric arts, professional wrestling, Bollywood danceto make a lucid and compelling argument that participation in affinity networks can have a critical and positive effect on student learning and life chances. Affinity Online is that rare scholarly work that is as interesting to read for the closely observed detail as for the sweep of its larger argument. -- Clay Shirky,author of Little Rice: Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream

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Book Synopsis2018 Outstanding Academic Title, given by Choice MagazineHow mobile devices make our in-between moments valuable to media companies while also providing a sense of control and connectionIn moments of downtime waiting for a friend to arrive or commuting to work we pull out our phones for a few minutes of distraction. Just as television reoriented the way we think about living rooms, mobile devices have taken over the interstitial spaces of our everyday lives. Ethan Tussey argues that these in-between moments have created a procrastination economy, an opportunity for entertainment companies to create products, apps, platforms, subscription services, micropayments, and interactive opportunities that can colonize our everyday lives. But as businesses commoditize our free time, and mobile devices become essential tools for promotion, branding and distribution, consumers are using these devices as a means of navigating public and private space. These devices are not just changing the wayTrade Review"Wasting time has become big business, as brands extend across cyberspace and into seemingly every area of our lives....offers a useful analysis of how Twitter and TV have become so intertwined and how mobile devices have changed and expanded the living room experience." * Kirkus Reviews *"[An] engrossing study. Tussey's book is likely to strike a chord...with the many readers who see their smartphones and other mobile devices as a help, rather than hindrance, to their lives. He has crafted a thoughtful...approach to a pervasive aspect of modern life." * Publishers Weekly *"This insightful and timely book focuses on how earlier mobile devices paved the way for the era of smartphones and ubiquitous computing. By studying four quotidian environments—the workplace, the commute, the waiting room, and the ‘connected’ living room—Tussey’s first book contributes to a growing literature on waiting and temporality as social and political constructs." * Media Industries Journal *"Mobile devices and social media apps are only the most overt elements. In his overview of the system, Tussey focuses on the network of content providers, subscription services, consumer-behavior monitors and data-mining algorithms that operate, so to speak, in the hidden depths of our screens." * Inside Higher Ed *"This book is a nice contribution to the growing body of work on new media spectatorship." * Television & New Media *"A lucid and innovative rethinking of the cultural politics of mobile media. Building on astute, site-specific fieldwork, Tussey picks apart moral panics and tired corporate paradigms alike. The book shows instead how complex adaptive behaviors now constitute industry-user interactions within the in-between times, non-spaces, and strategic mobile day-parts of digital and social media. This book forces scholars and developers alike to question the sacred cows of media specificity and new technology exceptionalism." -- John T. Caldwell,author of Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television"Ethan Tussey offers an exciting and foundational conceptthe 'procrastination economy'that is sure to have a long life and change the way we think about entertainment and mobile technology. Insightful and original, incorporating both industry insight and audience use, this book takes a smart approach to a new media phenomenon." -- Amanda D. Lotz,author of The Television Will Be Revolutionized

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Book SynopsisA revealing look at the pleasure we get from hating figures like politicians, celebrities, and TV characters, showcased in approaches that explore snark, hate-watching, and trolling The work of a fan takes many forms: following a favorite celebrity on Instagram, writing steamy fan fiction fantasies, attending meet-and-greets, and creating fan art as homages to adored characters. While fandom that manifests as feelings of like and love are commonly understood, examined less frequently are the equally intense, but opposite feelings of dislike and hatred. Disinterest. Disgust. Hate. This is anti-fandom. It is visible in many of the same spaces where you see fandom: in the long lines at ComicCon, in our politics, and in numerous online forums like Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, and the ever dreaded comments section. This is where fans and fandoms debate and discipline. This is where we love to hate. Anti-Fandom,a collection of 15 original and innovative essays, provides a fTrade ReviewTogether, the chapters in Anti-Fandom provide much of the groundwork needed to provide a framework for anti-fan theory, and anyone looking to jump into this emerging area of study will find this book both interesting and useful. * CBQ *

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Book SynopsisMy guilty pleasure wasn't just reading low-brow fiction or even female-authored fiction, it was being femme itself.What is it about ribald romance novels, luxurious interior design, and frothy wedding dresses that often make women feel their desires come with a shadow of shame? In Avidly Reads Guilty Pleasures, Arielle Zibrak considers the specifically pleasurable forms of feminine guilt and desire stimulated by supposedly lowbrow aesthetic tendencies. She takes up the overwhelming preoccupation with the experience of being humiliated, dominated, or even abused that has pervaded the stories that make up women's culturefrom eighteenth-century epistolary novels to popular twentieth-century teen magazine features to present-day romantic comedies. In three chaptersRough Sex, Expensive Sheets, and Saying Yes to the Dressthat mirror the plot structures of feminine fictions themselves, this book tells the story of the desires that only the guiltiest of pleasures evoke. Zibrak reexamines docTrade Review"Funny, smart, engrossing. I fell head over heels for this exploration of guilty pleasures. Zibrak writes with both an academic's acute eye for pattern and depth and the intimacy of the very works she explores. I feel like I've been laughing with my best friend in a closet, and I can't wait to give a copy to every single one of my friends. I urge you to read it and give it to your friends, too" * Barbara O'Neal, bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids *"Reading Arielle Zibrak’s witty and charming survey of what she calls “femme fiction” offers all pleasure and no guilt. Diving into the complex topic of “guilty pleasures,” she mines low and popular culture for nuggets of wisdom about gender, race, class, fiction and fantasy. You will love this book if you need the encouragement to indulge guilty pleasures. You will love it even more if you make no apologies for those pleasures. Enjoy!" * Jack Halberstam, author of Gaga Feminism and The Queer Art of Failure *"Arielle Zibrak’s Guilty Pleasures is such a fun and fast conversation that reading it feels like having brunch with a hilarious dear friend." * Popmatters *

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Book SynopsisMy guilty pleasure wasn't just reading low-brow fiction or even female-authored fiction, it was being femme itself.What is it about ribald romance novels, luxurious interior design, and frothy wedding dresses that often make women feel their desires come with a shadow of shame? In Avidly Reads Guilty Pleasures, Arielle Zibrak considers the specifically pleasurable forms of feminine guilt and desire stimulated by supposedly lowbrow aesthetic tendencies. She takes up the overwhelming preoccupation with the experience of being humiliated, dominated, or even abused that has pervaded the stories that make up women's culturefrom eighteenth-century epistolary novels to popular twentieth-century teen magazine features to present-day romantic comedies.In three chaptersRough Sex, Expensive Sheets, and Saying Yes to the Dressthat mirror the plot structures of feminine fictions themselves, this book tells the story of the desires that only the guiltiest of pleasures evTrade Review"Funny, smart, engrossing. I fell head over heels for this exploration of guilty pleasures. Zibrak writes with both an academic's acute eye for pattern and depth and the intimacy of the very works she explores. I feel like I've been laughing with my best friend in a closet, and I can't wait to give a copy to every single one of my friends. I urge you to read it and give it to your friends, too" * Barbara O'Neal, bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids *"Reading Arielle Zibrak’s witty and charming survey of what she calls “femme fiction” offers all pleasure and no guilt. Diving into the complex topic of “guilty pleasures,” she mines low and popular culture for nuggets of wisdom about gender, race, class, fiction and fantasy. You will love this book if you need the encouragement to indulge guilty pleasures. You will love it even more if you make no apologies for those pleasures. Enjoy!" * Jack Halberstam, author of Gaga Feminism and The Queer Art of Failure *"Arielle Zibrak’s Guilty Pleasures is such a fun and fast conversation that reading it feels like having brunch with a hilarious dear friend." * Popmatters *

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Book SynopsisWinner, 2021 NACCS Book Award, given by the National Association for Chicano and Chicana StudiesExplores the how, why, and what of contemporary Chicanx culture, including punk rock, literary fiction, photography, mass graves, and digital and experimental installation artRacial Immanence attempts to unravel a Gordian knot at the center of the study of race and discourse: it seeks to loosen the constraints that the politics of racial representation put on interpretive methods and on our understanding of race itself. Marissa K. Lopez argues that reading Chicanx literary and cultural texts primarily for the ways they represent Chicanxness only reinscribes the very racial logic that such texts ostensibly set out to undo. Racial Immanence proposes to read differently; instead of focusing on representation, it asks what Chicanx texts do, what they produce in the world, and specifically how they produce access to the ineffable but material experience of race. Intrigued by the attention to diTrade Review"López staunchly debunks the idea that Chicanx identity can be thoroughly known or interpreted. Rather, she demonstrates why literature for and by people of color matters: they eschew the neoliberal argument for multicultural representation, instead questioning structural violence, shared precarity, and human imbrication within the more-than-human world. This is a bold, refreshing book that demonstrates the urgency and importance of Chicanx literature while simultaneously challenging the reasons why we read it." -- Julie A. Minich, author of Accessible Citizenships: Disability, Nation, and the Cultural Politics of Greater Mexico "Racial Immanence sets out to tackle a seemingly intractable problem for the study of race and literature: the constraints that racial representation puts on both interpretive methods and our understanding of race itself . In expanding our horizon of Chicanx cultural production beyond literary works to such objects as the Aztec “sun stone,” contemporary art photography, and Latinx punk music , López proposes a new way to read this body of work, asking what Chicanx texts do, what they produce in the world, and how they access the ineffable yet material experience of race. An urgent and necessary book." -- John Alba Cutler, author of Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature"López advocates for reconsidering space and time through reading and writing in order to reimagine the social and to create a place of radical hope." * Choice *

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Book SynopsisExplains why audiences dislike certain media and what happens when they doThe study and discussion of media is replete with talk of fans, loves, stans, likes, and favorites, but what of dislikes, distastes, and alienation?Dislike-Minded draws from over two-hundred qualitative interviews to probe what the media's failures, wounds, and sore spots tell us about media culture, taste, identity, representation, meaning, textuality, audiences, and citizenship. The book refuses the simplicity of Pierre Bourdieu's famous dictum that dislike is (only) snobbery. Instead, Jonathan Gray pushes onward to uncover other explanations for what it ultimately means to dislike specific artifacts of television, film, and other media, and why this dislike matters.As we watch and listen through gritted teeth, Dislike-Minded listens to what is being said, and presents a bold case for a new line of audience research within communication, media, and cultural studies.Trade ReviewDislike-Minded offers rich theories and much-needed vocabularies for understanding our complex relationships with media that annoy, bother, and haunt us. It helps us make sense of anti-fans, media failure, involuntary reception, second-hand media exposure, and all those negative feelings generated by media engagements. Rooted in lived experience, it explores routine audience practices in their social contexts and uncovers the reasons why we consume media we simply do not like. Clearly written and evocatively argued, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in audience research, media affect, and everyday life. * Andre Cavalcante, author of Struggling for Ordinary: Media and Transgender Belonging in Everyday Life *A critical and incisive expansion of Jonathan Gray’s foundational work on antifandom, Dislike-Minded offers a nuanced and theoretically rich model for understanding the motivations and mechanics of dislike. Gray’s insightful exploration of taste cultures and the ways in which degrees of privilege shape our relationships to media objects makes this an essential book for better understanding our deeply polarized culture. As Gray’s robust ethnographies make clear, there are many things to dislike about our contemporary media landscape, but I am happy to report I found nothing to dislike about this book. * Suzanne Scott, author of Fake Geek Girls: Fandom, Gender, and the Convergence Culture Industry *In Dislike-Minded, [Gray] makes a deeply compelling argument to stare directly into the face of an idea that we find distasteful and inappropriate, but in the name of bettering ourselves, through an entertaining, yet thoroughly complex piece of research that is indeed worthy of its name. * Communication Design Quarterly *

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Book SynopsisThe promises and conflicts faced by public figures, artists, and leaders of Northeast Los Angeles as they enliven and defend their neighborhoods Los Angeles is well known as a sprawling metropolis with endless freeways that can make the city feel isolating and separate its communities. Yet in the past decade, as Jan Lin argues in Taking Back the Boulevard, there has been a noticeable renewal of public life on several of the city's iconic boulevards, including Atlantic, Crenshaw, Lankershim, Sunset, Western, and Wilshire. These arteries connect neighborhoods across the city, traverse socioeconomic divides and ethnic enclaves, and can be understood as the true locational heart of public life in the metropolis. Focusing especially on the cultural scene of Northeast Los Angeles, Lin shows how these gentrifying communities help satisfy a white middle-class consumer demand for authentic experiences of living on the edge and a spirit of cultural rebellion. These neighborhoods have gone througTrade Review"Taking Back the Boulevard is exemplary in its ability to weave the strands of structure and agency together to show how real gentrified spaces are produced. And just as important, such complexity is delivered with clear prose and riveting stories. Although the book focuses on Northeast Los Angeles, its lessons are generalizable. Scholars and students of gentrification would enjoy reading the book and benefit from engaging with its core arguments. It is at once a labour of love by an established urban sociologist and an important contribution to the sprawling literature on the subject." -- International Journal of Urban and Regional Research"Taking Back the Boulevard is an excellent resource for scholars and researchers who see themselves as public intellectuals, as well as for individuals wishing to engage art and activism in urban communities. The text is accessible, comprehensive, and passionate. Lin offers a stimulating tales for which to approach Northeast L.A., transgenerational activism, and a community’s cycles of cultural and economic transition." -- Social Forces"Jan Lin has written both a meticulous and a passionate documentation of the long waves of investment, migration, and cultural expression that have shaped Northeast Los Angeles since the heyday of Anglo urbanization. From bohemianism and bike lanes, to tacos and lattes, Lin shows how embedded cultural patterns and determined community activists keep the vitality of the streets even in our most automobile-dependent city." -- Sharon Zukin,Author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places"In this heartfelt and meticulously researched history of the boulevard-lined neighborhoods of Northeast L.A., Jan Lin has given us a crucial and timely investigation into how local cultural and community movements, together with struggles over the right to the city, shape our contemporary urban landscapeWith imaginative theorization and brilliantly clear prose, Lin attends to the contradictions and conflicts of the current moment, as well as new, radical possibilities for a green and equitable city that are now also within sight." -- Miriam Greenberg,Co-editor of The City is the Factory: New Solidarities and Spatial Tactics in an Urban Age"Jan Lin has produced a deeply researched and beautifully written examination of more than a century of neighborhood change and activism in northeast Los Angeles ... Lin aims to take back the boulevards as a topic for urban sociology so that the continuity, growth, change, conflict, and drama of street life get a hearing in their own right. At this he succeeds admirably, and students of urban sociology at all levels have something to learn from entering into the world Lin has so skillfully depicted." * American Journal of Sociology *

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Book SynopsisTackles a human problem we all share?the fate of the earth and our role in its future Confident that your personal good deeds of environmental virtue will save the earth? The stories we encounter about the environment in popular culture too often promote an imagined moral economy, assuring us that tiny acts of voluntary personal piety, such as recycling a coffee cup, or purchasing green consumer items, can offset our destructive habits. No need to make any fundamental structural changes. The trick is simply for the consumer to buy the right things and shop our way to a greener future.It's time for a reality check. Ecopiety offers an absorbing examination of the intersections of environmental sensibilities, contemporary expressions of piety and devotion, and American popular culture. Ranging from portrayals of environmental sin and virtue such as the eco-pious depiction of Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, to the green capitalism found in the world of mobile-Trade ReviewBy showing the deeper-than-acknowledged impact of pop culture on people’s beliefs about environmental issues, Taylor’s thoughtful treatise offers hope that effective storytelling can play a role in meaningfully addressing catastrophic climate change. * Publishers Weekly *Sarah McFarland Taylor wades into the messy space of felt eco-practice with wry humor and thorough clarity. … The power of this book rests in the compelling and innovative sources McFarland Taylor explores to understand how individualistic forms of ecopiety are storied to us. … each chapter uncovers the media and messaging that make subtle, sometimes imperceptible interventions in our ecological ethics and the fundamental ways we understand our living. * Christian Century *[Ecopiety] dives into what it means to be a consumer at the heart of two conflicting narratives – buying stuff is good for the economy, and consuming resources is bad for the environment. ... will have you thinking differently about how environmental behaviour is presented in pop culture and the media. * The Fifth Estate *The powerful argument that repeatedly surfaces throughout Sarah McFarland Taylor's book – that while acts of ecopiety are often nice and microscopically positive, they are essentially meaningless when faced with the global scale problem they seek to combat [...] is robust, well researched, and close to irrefutable. * Geographical Magazine *A wake-up call for all those who want to be good stewards of our planet but don’t necessarily know what they should be doing. Untangles the web of conflicting narratives, pulls back the curtain on our psyche, and shows us the roots of corporate manipulation in media. * Brontide Journal *An astute analysis of certain features of contemporary American culture, Ecopiety addresses an important question: what should we do to make the world a more sustainable place for all? ... An interesting and timely book. * Interpretation *The cases considered are extraordinary: erotic fiction interweaving ecopiety and consumopiety, automotive purity and trucker pollution, carbon sin-tracking apps, celebrities performing green, vampires turning vegetarian, corpses as media for living on naturally, tattoos identifying humans with endangered species, green hip-hop advancing social inclusion, and more. … Admirably, against the odds, Sarah McFarland Taylor does not contribute to eco-pessimism but advances what I would call an interpretive ethics of story, performance, and play as means for shaping the future. ... for the study of religion this theoretically informed, meticulously detailed, and surprising exploration of religious circulations through media, markets, and moral incongruities is transformative. -- David Chidester * Religion Journal *Wow! It is rare that one has the chance to preview a work which displays this level of intellectual virtuosity. Taylors work occupies an important intersection between religious studies and media/cultural studies. . . . An amazing book, which is going to generate lots of interest. -- Henry Jenkins, Author of Convergence CultureThis book could not come at a more urgent time; as the costs of human life and consumerism become clearer in the environmental crises of the planet, MacFarland-Taylor offers us a brilliant, compelling analysis of how discourses of virtue are used to re-direct the global climate crisis from a collective politics to the choices of individual consumers. The book explores green consumer marketing in the frame of ecopiety by examining a variety of practices, from cars to reality television to mediated popular cultural narratives about vampires to green burials, and in the process offers not only a trenchant critique but also possible alternatives to individualist consumption as a way to virtuously “save the planet.” -- Sarah Banet-Weiser, London School of Economics and author of Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular MisogynyDemonstrates the power of myths of individual moral and social power while teasing out the way resistance and counter readings of dominant narratives are possible in the interactive media world made possible by digital communications.... An important argument that adds to our understanding of environmental issues and lifestyle politics. -- Jeffrey Mahan, Iliff School of TheologyEcopiety is a worthwhile book for anyone who is interested in the role of media and narrative in contemporary environmental discourse…Even activists and policymakers who wish to employ media for green ends stand to benefit from Ecopiety. -- Gabriel Vasquez-Peterson * Environmental Values 31.3 *

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Book SynopsisOpera is community, comfort, art, voice, breath, life. It's hope.All art exists to make life more bearable. For Alison Kinney, it was the wild, fantastical world of opera that transformed her listening and her life. Whether we're listening for the first time or revisiting the arias that first stole our hearts, Avidly Reads Opera welcomes readers and listeners to a community full of friendship, passion, critiqueand, always, beautiful music. In times of delirious, madcap fun and political turmoil, opera fans have expressed their passion by dispatching records into the cosmos, building fairy-tale castles, and singing together through the arduous work of social activism. Avidly Reads Opera is a love letter to the music and those who love it, complete with playlists, a crowdsourced tip sheet from ultra-fans to newbies, and stories of the turbulent, genre-busting, and often hilarious history of opera and its audiences. Across five actsand the requisite intermissionAlison Kinney takes us evTrade ReviewExplaining a musical genre’s appeal for the uninitiated is a tricky feat, but Kinney’s personal approach and passion for her subject distinguish this book from other 'opera 101' attempts. An appealing primer by a fan, for (potential) fans. * Library Journal *When making a solo trip to the opera, almost everyone who wasn't raised on the art faces this question: 'Do I really belong here?' Alison Kinney says 'yes,' and invites you to ride along with her: to performances at Wagner's theater, and also, less conventionally, at a prison. She's insightful and entertaining, but not merely good company. Her larger conversation with the tradition—regarding its pleasures and its problems—should excite anyone eager to see opera with new eyes. * Seth Colter Walls, New York Times contributing music critic *Alison Kinney’s words are like the opinionated arguments you seek out from a friend you trust and respect enough to disagree with—but only occasionally. The energy, care, and excitement are palpable and propel you through this chatty romp through the repertoire. From classic operas to lesser-known and recent works, this book holds opera accountable for its sins while also walking humbly through the halls of a genre that can still say important and trenchant things about social justice today. Kinney shows us that there is a seat for everyone in the opera audience, and welcomes us in. * Naomi André, University of Michigan *

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Book SynopsisOpera is community, comfort, art, voice, breath, life. It's hope.All art exists to make life more bearable. For Alison Kinney, it was the wild, fantastical world of opera that transformed her listening and her life. Whether we're listening for the first time or revisiting the arias that first stole our hearts, Avidly Reads Opera welcomes readers and listeners to a community full of friendship, passion, critiqueand, always, beautiful music. In times of delirious, madcap fun and political turmoil, opera fans have expressed their passion by dispatching records into the cosmos, building fairy-tale castles, and singing together through the arduous work of social activism. Avidly Reads Opera is a love letter to the music and those who love it, complete with playlists, a crowdsourced tip sheet from ultra-fans to newbies, and stories of the turbulent, genre-busting, and often hilarious history of opera and its audiences.Across five actsand the requisitTrade Review"Explaining a musical genre’s appeal for the uninitiated is a tricky feat, but Kinney’s personal approach and passion for her subject distinguish this book from other 'opera 101' attempts. An appealing primer by a fan, for (potential) fans." * Library Journal *"When making a solo trip to the opera, almost everyone who wasn't raised on the art faces this question: 'Do I really belong here?' Alison Kinney says 'yes,' and invites you to ride along with her: to performances at Wagner's theater, and also, less conventionally, at a prison. She's insightful and entertaining, but not merely good company. Her larger conversation with the tradition—regarding its pleasures and its problems—should excite anyone eager to see opera with new eyes." * Seth Colter Walls, New York Times contributing music critic *"Alison Kinney’s words are like the opinionated arguments you seek out from a friend you trust and respect enough to disagree with—but only occasionally. The energy, care, and excitement are palpable and propel you through this chatty romp through the repertoire. From classic operas to lesser-known and recent works, this book holds opera accountable for its sins while also walking humbly through the halls of a genre that can still say important and trenchant things about social justice today. Kinney shows us that there is a seat for everyone in the opera audience, and welcomes us in." * Naomi André, University of Michigan *

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Book SynopsisPoetry has leapt out of its world and into the worldPoetry is everywhere. From Amanda Gorman performing The Hill We Climb before the nation at Joe Biden's Presidential inauguration, to poems regularly going viral on Instagram and Twitter, more Americans are reading and interacting with poetry than ever before. Avidly Reads Poetry is an ode to poetry and the worlds that come into play around the different ways it is written and shared. Mixing literary and cultural criticism with the author's personal and often intimate relationship with poetry, Avidly Reads Poetry breathes life into poems of every genrefrom alphabet poems and Shakespeare's sonnets to Claudia Rankine's Citizen and Rupi Kaur's Instapoetryand asks: How do poems come to us? How do they make us feel and think and act when they do? Who and what is poetry for? Who does poetry include and exclude, and what can we learn from it?Each section links a reason why we might read poetry with a type of poem to help us think about how Trade Review"A smart guide ... Ardam is thoughtful in her examination of how poetry infiltrates pop culture, and her love of the genre shines. Readers looking to start a poetry habit will appreciate this earnest consideration." * Publishers Weekly *"What can poems do? How might they capture our desires, comfort us, connect us, or help us carve out space for ourselves in the world? When do they make us wince, and how do they make us weep? When does poetry let us off the hook, and when and how can poetry hold us accountable for systemic and historical injustices? With unflinching honesty, capacious expertise, humor, and heart, Ardam invites us in to her brilliant and multifaceted modes of thinking about poetry. Pedagogical in its essence and political to its core, Avidly Reads Poetry invites well-versed poetry lovers and Intro to Poetry students alike to ask how they see themselves in poetry, and what they find there." * Rachel Feder, author of Birth Chart *

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Book SynopsisPoetry has leapt out of its world and into the worldPoetry is everywhere. From Amanda Gorman performing The Hill We Climb before the nation at Joe Biden's Presidential inauguration, to poems regularly going viral on Instagram and Twitter, more Americans are reading and interacting with poetry than ever before. Avidly Reads Poetry is an ode to poetry and the worlds that come into play around the different ways it is written and shared.Mixing literary and cultural criticism with the author's personal and often intimate relationship with poetry, Avidly Reads Poetry breathes life into poems of every genrefrom alphabet poems and Shakespeare's sonnets to Claudia Rankine's Citizen and Rupi Kaur's Instapoetryand asks: How do poems come to us? How do they make us feel and think and act when they do? Who and what is poetry for? Who does poetry include and exclude, and what can we learn from it?Each section links a reason why we mightTrade Review"A smart guide ... Ardam is thoughtful in her examination of how poetry infiltrates pop culture, and her love of the genre shines. Readers looking to start a poetry habit will appreciate this earnest consideration." * Publishers Weekly *"What can poems do? How might they capture our desires, comfort us, connect us, or help us carve out space for ourselves in the world? When do they make us wince, and how do they make us weep? When does poetry let us off the hook, and when and how can poetry hold us accountable for systemic and historical injustices? With unflinching honesty, capacious expertise, humor, and heart, Ardam invites us in to her brilliant and multifaceted modes of thinking about poetry. Pedagogical in its essence and political to its core, Avidly Reads Poetry invites well-versed poetry lovers and Intro to Poetry students alike to ask how they see themselves in poetry, and what they find there." * Rachel Feder, author of Birth Chart *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewRalph Youngs Dissent: The History of an American Idea, published by New York University Press in 2015, invoked the daring spirit and moral resolve of the late Howard Zinn. Make Art, Not War is the essential visual companion to this instant classic. Drawing from thousands of compelling and provocative posters housed in the famed Tamiment Poster and Broadside Collection, Young presents a centurys worth of fierce dissent and unyielding opposition to hate, sexism, war, fascism, homophobia, and racism. This is the coffee table book for the Bernie moment. -- Bryant Simon,Temple UniversityThe story of American dissent movements, so often expressed in word, also has a rich visual legacy brought to life in this volume curated by master historian Ralph Young. His general narrative and image specific commentary brings these images to life, making their stories relevant for a new generation continuing the age old tradition of dissent in America. -- Bobby A. Wintermute,Queens College - City University of New YorkThis collection of postersa sampling of the art and design of dissentis a wonderful visual counterpart to the protest music of the age. Every page should provoke discussion. -- Beth Bailey,Foundation Professor, Department of History, University of KansasWhat a wonderful collection! Make Art, Not War combines the aesthetic with the political to show how the arts and culture have informed and protested social injustices and wars. Often, art and culture are the first ways we learn of politics and dissent. More than heavy theoretical tomes, we can see, in a poster or painting, powerful statements on racism, sexism, homophobia, or war. Bruce Springsteen sang I learned more from a three-minute record than I ever learned in school," and the same is true of Ralph Young's smart and incisive essay and the art presented. It's educational and not heavy, anger-inducing but not shrill. -- Robert Buzzanco ,author of Masters of War: Military Dissent and Politics in the Vietnam EraHistorian Ralph Young has presented a valuable collection of 20th century American political posters...Young's selection is a useful historical and thematic cross section. * Truthdig.com *

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Book SynopsisA toolkit for understanding how Asian Americans influence, consume and are reflected by mainstream media. Asian Americans have long been the subject and object of popular culture in the U.S. The rapid circulation of cultural flashpointssuch as the American obsession with K-pop sensations, Bollywood dance moves, and sriracha hot saucehave opened up new ways of understanding how the categories of Asian and Asian American are counterbalanced within global popular culture. Located at the crossroads of these global and national expressions, Global Asian American Popular Cultures highlights new approaches to modern culture, with essays that explore everything from music, film, and television to comics, fashion, food, and sports. As new digital technologies and cross-media convergence have expanded exchanges of transnational culture, Asian American popular culture emerges as a crucial site for understanding how communities share information and how the meanings of mainstTrade ReviewIn a world of increased transnational flows of media, information, and bodies,Global Asian American Popular Culturesis a highly welcome addition to scholarship that is increasingly considering the ways in which Asian America participates in a globalized perspective of identity and culture....With the repeated erasure of Asian American experiences both domestically and globally, the essays in this collection do crucial work in teasing out the ways in which Asian Americans negotiate their position within racialized power structures through their own creative works, mainstream media representation, engagement with their communities, their own familial experiences, and the relatively new digital landscape....This volume opens up conversations about the ways in which Asian American identities cross national borders through transnational flows of culture, thereby infusing the field of Asian American studies with a breath of fresh air. -- Cynthia Wang, California State University, Los Angeles * International Journal of Communication *A welcome and necessary book, Global Asian American Popular Cultures is nothing short of impressive. Working at the very cutting edge of contemporary Asian American cultural studies, the essays collected here are thoughtful and innovative and represent some of the most incisive voices in Asian American studies. An invaluable toolkit for a new generation of thinkers interested in how to do Asian American cultural critique. -- Anita Mannur,co-editor of Eating Asian AmericaThe delightfully diverse depictions of Asians, with pieces that coverEast Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian experiences, contain rich research that elegantly weaves descriptive narratives of subjects lived experiences. * International Journal of Communication *

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Book SynopsisCompares secular attitudes characterizing religious nones in the United States and CanadaAlmost a quarter of American and Canadian adults are nonreligious, while teens and young adults are even less likely to identify religiously. None of the Above explores the growing phenomenon of religious nones in North America. Who are the religious nones? Why, and where, is this population growing? While there has been increased attention on secularism in both Europe and the United States, little work to date has focused on Canada. Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme turn to survey and interview data to explore how a nonreligious identity impacts a variety of aspects of daily life in the US and Canada in sometimes similar and sometimes different ways, offering insights to illuminate societal and political trends. With numbers of nonreligious people even higher in Canada than in the US, some believe that secular currents to the north foreshadow what will happen inTrade ReviewClearly written and highly accessible, this book will make a significant contribution to the sociological study of religious nones in North America. -- Chad Seales, The University of Texas at AustinGreatly advances our knowledge about nonreligion in North America. Thiessen and Wilkins-Laflamme add a much-needed comparative perspective, provide the most in-depth analysis of nonreligion in Canada available, and expertly use mixed methods to narrate in rich detail both the long-term trends in nonreligion and the lived experiences of secular individuals. . . . Essential reading for understanding important changes to religion and society in both the U.S. and Canada. -- Joseph O. Baker, author of American Secularism: Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief SystemsA unique and especially welcome addition to the field. The empirical foundations of this work mark it out as superior to other books in this area. An excellent treatment of an important topic. -- David Voas, University College LondonNone of the Above will be of most interest to scholars working on issues related to secularization of the United States and Canada. Given its clearly explained methodology, useful appendices, and extensive up-to-date bibliography, it would also be a good book for graduate seminars on the sociology of religion. * Nova Religio *This book is an engaging read and important contribution to our understanding of nonreligious identity ... None of the Above is clearly written and should be appealing to scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates alike. It is especially well-suited to courses on the sociology of religion but could also enrich courses on social change, identity, and/or politics. * Social Forces *In None of the Above, Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme have done a great service for the field, producing a stellar overview of what we have learned to date and pointing us toward fruitful new directions for work on this topic. * Sociology of Religion *

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Book Synopsis2018 Outstanding Academic Title, given by Choice MagazineHow mobile devices make our in-between moments valuable to media companies while also providing a sense of control and connectionIn moments of downtime waiting for a friend to arrive or commuting to work we pull out our phones for a few minutes of distraction. Just as television reoriented the way we think about living rooms, mobile devices have taken over the interstitial spaces of our everyday lives. Ethan Tussey argues that these in-between moments have created a procrastination economy, an opportunity for entertainment companies to create products, apps, platforms, subscription services, micropayments, and interactive opportunities that can colonize our everyday lives. But as businesses commoditize our free time, and mobile devices become essential tools for promotion, branding and distribution, consumers are using these devices as a means of navigating public and private space. These devices are not just changing the wayTrade Review"Wasting time has become big business, as brands extend across cyberspace and into seemingly every area of our lives....offers a useful analysis of how Twitter and TV have become so intertwined and how mobile devices have changed and expanded the living room experience." * Kirkus Reviews *"[An] engrossing study. Tussey's book is likely to strike a chord...with the many readers who see their smartphones and other mobile devices as a help, rather than hindrance, to their lives. He has crafted a thoughtful...approach to a pervasive aspect of modern life." * Publishers Weekly *"This insightful and timely book focuses on how earlier mobile devices paved the way for the era of smartphones and ubiquitous computing. By studying four quotidian environments—the workplace, the commute, the waiting room, and the ‘connected’ living room—Tussey’s first book contributes to a growing literature on waiting and temporality as social and political constructs." * Media Industries Journal *"Mobile devices and social media apps are only the most overt elements. In his overview of the system, Tussey focuses on the network of content providers, subscription services, consumer-behavior monitors and data-mining algorithms that operate, so to speak, in the hidden depths of our screens." * Inside Higher Ed *"This book is a nice contribution to the growing body of work on new media spectatorship." * Television & New Media *"A lucid and innovative rethinking of the cultural politics of mobile media. Building on astute, site-specific fieldwork, Tussey picks apart moral panics and tired corporate paradigms alike. The book shows instead how complex adaptive behaviors now constitute industry-user interactions within the in-between times, non-spaces, and strategic mobile day-parts of digital and social media. This book forces scholars and developers alike to question the sacred cows of media specificity and new technology exceptionalism." -- John T. Caldwell,author of Production Culture: Industrial Reflexivity and Critical Practice in Film and Television"Ethan Tussey offers an exciting and foundational conceptthe 'procrastination economy'that is sure to have a long life and change the way we think about entertainment and mobile technology. Insightful and original, incorporating both industry insight and audience use, this book takes a smart approach to a new media phenomenon." -- Amanda D. Lotz,author of The Television Will Be Revolutionized

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Book SynopsisHow popular culture is engaged by activists to effect emancipatory political changeOne cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination represents a call for greater clarity about what we're fighting fornot just what we're fighting against. Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes civic imagination as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culturefrom Beyoncé to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VRfor the vernacular through whichTrade ReviewAn exceptionally well-conceived and thoughtfully assembled collection that resuscitates a cultural studies oriented toward the popular, in service of politically urgent questions about agency and resources for imagining otherwise. Across a wide array of case studies that span genres, media, and geopolitical contexts, the entries in this volume build on each other in a rich and versatile way. -- Eva Cherniavsky, author of Neocitizenship: Political Culture after DemocracyRaises timely, critical questions and provides creative answers to this current moment in US history ... The essays thus function as a handbook for how individuals and groups can find creative collaborative approaches to crystallize their aspirations for a better society. This collection is a useful resource for scholars and advanced students in media studies, critical cultural studies, social movements, and sociology. * CHOICE *

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Book SynopsisHow black and Latino youth learn, create, and collaborate onlineThe Digital Edge examines how the digital and social-media lives of low-income youth, especially youth of color, have evolved amidst rapid social and technological change. While notions of the digital divide between the technology rich and the technology poor have largely focused on access to new media technologies, the contours of the digital divide have grown increasingly complex. Analyzing data from a year-long ethnographic study at Freeway High School, the authors investigate how the digital media ecologies and practices of black and Latino youth have adapted as a result of the wider diffusion of the internet all around us--in homes, at school, and in the palm of our hands. Their eager adoption of different technologies forge new possibilities for learning and creating that recognize the collective power of youth: peer networks, inventive uses of technology, and impassioned interests that are remaking the digital worldTrade ReviewBased on an ethnographic study conducted in Austin, Texas, involving nearly 300 interviews, Watkins and his coauthors provide an overview of the digital divide that African Americans and Latino youth face and an exploration of the ways they use mobile technology and the internet.… The book’s strength lies in its asset-based framing of the potential and agency of adolescents who are eager to harness technology in their educations and careers. The book concludes by encouraging educators to ask if they are truly preparing youth for the future. -- CHOICEA powerful dispatch from the front lines of the battle to ensure that digital education closesrather than widensgaps between communities of color and the rest of the nation. Digital Edge wrestles with the complex questions of whether the excitement Black Latino youth have expressed in adopting digital technologies can turn into economic opportunity, and whether our education system is capable of channeling that passion into educational equity. -- Ethan Zuckerman,author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of ConnectionFor anyone interested in an up-close observation of how black, Latinx, immigrant, and low-income students are participating in a complex digital world, I highly recommendThe Digital Edgefor its critical analysis of the complexities and tensions involved with technology in education, equity, and what it means to prepare all youth to be 'future ready'. -- Jane Margolis,author of Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, And ComputingA major contribution in understanding the impact of precarious access to digital technology at school and home as well as missed opportunities for STEM education resulting in further widening the education and income gap, reproducing inequality for low income Black and Latinx youth, and severely impacting communities. * Social Forces *The Digital Edge explains why what we believe about the digital divide is wrong, and in 2020, it could not be more relevant ... the authors presciently outline why it is time to rethink the old conception of the digital divide. This book is a must for educators, and an important read for anyone interested in the convoluted present and future of the digital divide in America. * International Journal of Communication *

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Book SynopsisThe historical and cultural context of fame in the twenty-first centuryToday, celebrity culture is an inescapable part of our media landscape and our everyday lives. This was not always the case. Over the past century, media technologies have increasingly expanded the production and proliferation of fame. Celebrity explores this revolution and its often under-estimated impact on American culture. Using numerous precedent-setting examples spanning more than one hundred years of media history, Douglas and McDonnell trace the dynamic relationship between celebrity and the technologies of mass communication that have shaped the nature of fame in the United States.Revealing how televised music fanned a worldwide phenomenon called Beatlemania and how Kim Kardashian broke the internet, Douglas and McDonnell also show how the media has shaped both the lives of the famous and the nature of the spotlight itself. Celebrity examines the production, circulation, Trade ReviewDouglas and McDonnell focus … on technological change in the United States and its implications for celebrity culture ... highlights a transformation that has only intensified in the era of twenty-four-hour cable and Twitter. -- New York Review of BooksAn indispensable resource for understanding the deep connections between celebrities, the media, the public and the celebrity production industry. Douglas and McDonnell offer an expert guide to the current moment of heightened media visibility and celebrity accessibility, reminding us of the crucial history of celebrity and fame. -- Sarah Banet-Weiser, author of Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular MisogynyFrom Alexander the Great to Donald Trump, from Clara Bow to Kim Kardashian, fame has been an odd mix of products, personalities, pleasures, and politics. Carefully attuned to the impact of technologies and media, and to the interplay between celebrity industries and their audiences, Celebrity offers a detailed history of fame that is smart, rich, complex, current, and fun. -- Joshua Gamson, author of Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary AmericaThere is no more perfect timing for this brilliant examination of celebrity as the primary currency of public life than in the era of a reality show president! -- Jeffrey P. Jones, Executive Director, Peabody Awards

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Book SynopsisHow online affinity networks expand learning and opportunity for young peopleBoyband One Direction fanfiction writers, gamers who solve math problems together, Harry Potter fans who knit for a cause. Across subcultures and geographies, young fans have found each other and formed community online, learning from one another along the way. From these and other in-depth case studies of online affinity networks, Affinity Online considers how young people have found new opportunities for expanded learning in the digital age. These cases reveal the shared characteristics and unique cultures and practices of different online affinity networks, and how they support connected learninglearning that brings together youth interests, social activity, and accomplishment in civic, academic, and career relevant arenas. Although involvement in online communities is an established fixture of growing up in the networked age, participation in these spaces show how young people are actively taking up new meTrade ReviewHelps those of us who are no longer kids to understand how their online and offline worlds connect. These global case studies give us insights into youth at the same time that detailed notes about how the authors themselves used their online tools to collaborate help researchers understand what is possible in a truly connected world. -- Cathy N. Davidson,Founding Director and Distinguished Professor, The Futures Initiative, Graduate Center, CUNYReminds us that education is not just learning, it is learning embedded in systems of institutional organization, cultural capital, and peer networks. Drawing on a multi-year research project on young people's behavior online, the book traces student interest in a remarkable range of topicsfabric arts, professional wrestling, Bollywood danceto make a lucid and compelling argument that participation in affinity networks can have a critical and positive effect on student learning and life chances. Affinity Online is that rare scholarly work that is as interesting to read for the closely observed detail as for the sweep of its larger argument. -- Clay Shirky,author of Little Rice: Smartphones, Xiaomi, and the Chinese Dream

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Book SynopsisCompares secular attitudes characterizing religious nones in the United States and CanadaAlmost a quarter of American and Canadian adults are nonreligious, while teens and young adults are even less likely to identify religiously. None of the Above explores the growing phenomenon of religious nones in North America. Who are the religious nones? Why, and where, is this population growing? While there has been increased attention on secularism in both Europe and the United States, little work to date has focused on Canada. Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme turn to survey and interview data to explore how a nonreligious identity impacts a variety of aspects of daily life in the US and Canada in sometimes similar and sometimes different ways, offering insights to illuminate societal and political trends. With numbers of nonreligious people even higher in Canada than in the US, some believe that secular currents to the north foreshadow what will happen inTrade ReviewClearly written and highly accessible, this book will make a significant contribution to the sociological study of religious nones in North America. -- Chad Seales, The University of Texas at AustinGreatly advances our knowledge about nonreligion in North America. Thiessen and Wilkins-Laflamme add a much-needed comparative perspective, provide the most in-depth analysis of nonreligion in Canada available, and expertly use mixed methods to narrate in rich detail both the long-term trends in nonreligion and the lived experiences of secular individuals. . . . Essential reading for understanding important changes to religion and society in both the U.S. and Canada. -- Joseph O. Baker, author of American Secularism: Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief SystemsA unique and especially welcome addition to the field. The empirical foundations of this work mark it out as superior to other books in this area. An excellent treatment of an important topic. -- David Voas, University College LondonNone of the Above will be of most interest to scholars working on issues related to secularization of the United States and Canada. Given its clearly explained methodology, useful appendices, and extensive up-to-date bibliography, it would also be a good book for graduate seminars on the sociology of religion. * Nova Religio *This book is an engaging read and important contribution to our understanding of nonreligious identity ... None of the Above is clearly written and should be appealing to scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates alike. It is especially well-suited to courses on the sociology of religion but could also enrich courses on social change, identity, and/or politics. * Social Forces *In None of the Above, Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-LaFlamme have done a great service for the field, producing a stellar overview of what we have learned to date and pointing us toward fruitful new directions for work on this topic. * Sociology of Religion *

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Book SynopsisThe historical and cultural context of fame in the twenty-first centuryToday, celebrity culture is an inescapable part of our media landscape and our everyday lives. This was not always the case. Over the past century, media technologies have increasingly expanded the production and proliferation of fame. Celebrity explores this revolution and its often under-estimated impact on American culture. Using numerous precedent-setting examples spanning more than one hundred years of media history, Douglas and McDonnell trace the dynamic relationship between celebrity and the technologies of mass communication that have shaped the nature of fame in the United States.Revealing how televised music fanned a worldwide phenomenon called Beatlemania and how Kim Kardashian broke the internet, Douglas and McDonnell also show how the media has shaped both the lives of the famous and the nature of the spotlight itself. Celebrity examines the production, circulation, Trade ReviewDouglas and McDonnell focus … on technological change in the United States and its implications for celebrity culture ... highlights a transformation that has only intensified in the era of twenty-four-hour cable and Twitter. -- New York Review of BooksAn indispensable resource for understanding the deep connections between celebrities, the media, the public and the celebrity production industry. Douglas and McDonnell offer an expert guide to the current moment of heightened media visibility and celebrity accessibility, reminding us of the crucial history of celebrity and fame. -- Sarah Banet-Weiser, author of Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular MisogynyFrom Alexander the Great to Donald Trump, from Clara Bow to Kim Kardashian, fame has been an odd mix of products, personalities, pleasures, and politics. Carefully attuned to the impact of technologies and media, and to the interplay between celebrity industries and their audiences, Celebrity offers a detailed history of fame that is smart, rich, complex, current, and fun. -- Joshua Gamson, author of Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary AmericaThere is no more perfect timing for this brilliant examination of celebrity as the primary currency of public life than in the era of a reality show president! -- Jeffrey P. Jones, Executive Director, Peabody Awards

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Book SynopsisAn inside look at how craft beer makers and IPA devotees come together to brew, taste, and enjoy fine ale while also building a sense of community in Las Vegas Equally reviled and revered as Sin City, Las Vegas is both exceptional and emblematic of contemporary American cultural practices and tastes. Michael Ian Borer takes us inside the burgeoning Las Vegas craft beer scene to witness how its adherents use beer to create and foster not just a local culture but a locals' culture. Through compelling, detailed first-hand accounts and interviews, Vegas Brews provides an unprecedented look into the ways that brewers, distributors, bartenders, and drinkers fight against the perceived and preconceived norm about what happens in Vegas and lay claim to a part of their city that is too often overshadowed by the bright lights of tourist sites. Borer shows how our interactions with the things we care aboutand the ways that we care about how they're made, treated, and consumedcan lead to new senseTrade ReviewBorer makes a crucial contribution by drawing attention to the ways people still make places as well, in their day-to-day lives through symbolic engagement with place reputations and their consequences. * American Journal of Sociology *Vegas Brews captures the stories of the emergence of craft brewers within the unique sociology of Las Vegas, cultivating an oasis in the desert for beer drinkers in Nevada. -- Paul Gatza, Director of the Brewers AssociationIs there a place for authenticity in a world of artifice and consumerism? Focusing on the microbrewery scene in Las Vegas, Michael Ian Borer answers this question by showing us in detail how collaboration, craftsmanship, skill, honor, and place-making coexist side by side. Rich in ethnographic detail, Vegas Brews is a great contribution to the study of how culture can shape the city landscape, and how cities, in turn, can shape culture. -- Claudio E. Benzecry, author of The Opera Fanatic: Ethnography of an ObsessionThis is a commendable text that will be indispensable to anyone researching urban redevelopment, consumption, brewing, or the role of community and scene in cultural production and innovation. It should also be on every ethnographic research methods reading list. * Symbolic Interaction *

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Book SynopsisHow political realities are formed when the government ceases to be a guarantor of rights and democracyNeocitizenship explores how the constellation of political and economic forces of neoliberalism have assailed and arguably dismantled the institutions of modern democratic governance in the U.S. As overtly oligarchical structures of governance replace the operations of representative democracy, the book addresses the implications of this crisis for the practices and imaginaries of citizenship through the lens of popular culture. Rather than impugn the abject citizen-subject who embraces her degraded condition, Eva Cherniavsky asks what new or hybrid forms of civic agency emerge as popular sovereignty recedes. Drawing on a range of political theories, Neocitizenship also suggests that theory is at a disadvantage in thinking the historical present, since its analytical categories are wrought in the very historical contexts whose dissolution we now seek to comprehend. Cherniavsky thus suTrade ReviewSophisticated and fresh, Neocitizenship breathes new life into the discourse on neoliberalism. Cherniavskys provocative study of the emergence of new political subjectivities amid the decline of the nation-state as a guarantor of rights and a repository of popular sovereignty will galvanize conversations around neoliberalism, citizenship, and affective economies. This is a book certain to generate a great deal of heat as well as light. -- Cotten Seiler,author of Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in AmericaNeocitizenshipis an alarming look into a future in which the neoliberal democratic system has fallen apart. * Inverse.com *I highly recommend this book to readers in American studies, cultural studies, and political theory. * H-Net Reviews *

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Book SynopsisA provocative, must-read investigation that both appreciates the importance ofand punctures the hype aroundbig-time contemporary American athleticsIn an increasingly secular, fragmented, and distracted culture, nothing brings Americans together quite like sports. On Sundays in September, more families worship at the altar of the NFL than at any church. This appeal, which cuts across all demographic and ideological lines, makes sports perhaps the last unifying mass ritual of our era, with huge numbers of people all focused on the same thing at the same moment. That timeless, live qualityimpervious to DVR, evoking ancient religious ritesmakes sports very powerful, and very lucrative. And the media spectacle around them is only getting bigger, brighter, and noisierfrom hot take journalism formats to the creeping infestation of advertising to social media celebrity schemes.More importantly, sports are sold as an oasis of community to a nation deeply divided: They are Trade ReviewMichael Serazio has done a remarkable analysis, and this book offers any student of American culture and sport much to contemplate...What this study offers is a full frontal examination of a multitude of areas with both a historical and contemporary focus that at times is dazzling. * New York Journal of Books *Fun, funny, and easy to read - not all bogged down by academic or scholarly jargon. * Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture *This is a benchmark work: a lasting and influential volume that deals with major issues cast by the sociocultural shadow of sports with a savvy and comprehensive accessibility that could change the game as we know it. -- Lawrence Wenner, author of Sport, Beer, and Gender: Promotional Culture and Contemporary Social LifeIn direct and engaging style, Serazio approaches the media spectacle of contemporary sports with the knowing ambivalence of the critical-but-sentimental fan, combining sharp critique and warm personal reflection. With liveliness and insight, and some smart jokes, he explores the many ways in which the sports-media nexus exercises power over identities, imaginations, politics and consumer behavior. Rooted in the American culture that first nurtured sports as a staple of modern commerce, The Power of Sports is a literary shot that will be heard around the world by readers curious to understand how sports came to be both secular religion and temple of Mammon. -- David Rowe, author of Global Media Sport: Flows, Forms and FuturesSerazio digs the ball out of the dirt and fires it right on the money in this brilliant, entertaining and important analysis of the games we love that rarely love us back. A terrific book for fans and non-fans. -- Robert Lipsyte, author of SportsWorld: An American DreamlandThis is a powerful, intellectual, and vital contribution to our understanding of sports and sports culture. Michael Serazio walks the line between the scholarly and the popular with uncommon dexterity -- Dave Zirin, Sports Editor, The NationSharp writing, clear arguments, and impressive scope. Well worth a look. -- Brett Hutchins, author of Sport Beyond Television[Later chapters] delve into current affairs and Ivory Tower concepts that Serazio covers with ease and verve... [A] penetrating study. * Journal of American Culture *It is to Serazio’s credit that the arguments in his 2019 book about how tightly sports are interwoven with economics, politics, and culture in the United States resonate just as strongly in the era of the coronavirus disease... The breadth of examples and wealth of detail in the book are compelling. Further, The Power of Sports draws from extensive interviews with key figures in the sports media, lending to both behind-the-scenes credibility for its claims and examples for Serazio to deconstruct... The Power of Sports [is] a handy addition to a syllabus, inviting students to make connections between Serazio’s claims and current events, and the book is also likely to spur on future publications about the cultural and economic power embedded in sports. * Quarterly Review of Film and Video *Serazio's approach [is] productively interdisciplinary and as informative for those in leisure studies and sports communication as those in media studies [...] Though Serazio's work is broadly focused, it paves the way for more in-depth discussions of sports leagues' and networks' relationships with fans and spectators. The arrival of The Power of Sports to this ever-growing landscape of sports and sports media scholarship will contribute to future scholars' capacity to articulate and analyze how sports industries exercise power over the public. * The Velvet Light Trap *Ambitious analysis of sports’ role in American society and the symbiotic influence of sport and media in American culture... That Serazio draws from such a diverse and well-respected collection of scholars speaks to the ambition of the project. He is not only interested in explaining how we arrived here but reaches for the why, as well... His extensive interviews provide fascinating, if sobering, descriptions.... The Power of Sports succeeds in presenting several prominent consequences that have resulted from sports’ rise to societal totem. * Communication Booknotes Quarterly *Serazio succeeds in demonstrating the cultural, political, and gendered implications of sports in American society... Based on interviews with athletes, sports journalists, and other 'insiders' in the ever-expanding world of professional sports, Serazio’s volume successfully provides an internal perspective of the interference of multiple 'powers' in American sports. * The Journal of Popular Culture *This is a very fine book accessible to most potential adult readers... The interviews with various industry practitioners are very deeply analyzed and are a critically important and often overlooked part of academic research. As such, this is an extremely valuable book from an industrial perspective and deserving of a place on any bookshelf. * Popular Culture Studies Journal *

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Book SynopsisTackles a human problem we all share?the fate of the earth and our role in its future Confident that your personal good deeds of environmental virtue will save the earth? The stories we encounter about the environment in popular culture too often promote an imagined moral economy, assuring us that tiny acts of voluntary personal piety, such as recycling a coffee cup, or purchasing green consumer items, can offset our destructive habits. No need to make any fundamental structural changes. The trick is simply for the consumer to buy the right things and shop our way to a greener future.It's time for a reality check. Ecopiety offers an absorbing examination of the intersections of environmental sensibilities, contemporary expressions of piety and devotion, and American popular culture. Ranging from portrayals of environmental sin and virtue such as the eco-pious depiction of Christian Grey in Fifty Shades of Grey, to the green capitalism found in the world of mobile-Trade ReviewBy showing the deeper-than-acknowledged impact of pop culture on people’s beliefs about environmental issues, Taylor’s thoughtful treatise offers hope that effective storytelling can play a role in meaningfully addressing catastrophic climate change. * Publishers Weekly *Sarah McFarland Taylor wades into the messy space of felt eco-practice with wry humor and thorough clarity. … The power of this book rests in the compelling and innovative sources McFarland Taylor explores to understand how individualistic forms of ecopiety are storied to us. … each chapter uncovers the media and messaging that make subtle, sometimes imperceptible interventions in our ecological ethics and the fundamental ways we understand our living. * Christian Century *[Ecopiety] dives into what it means to be a consumer at the heart of two conflicting narratives – buying stuff is good for the economy, and consuming resources is bad for the environment. ... will have you thinking differently about how environmental behaviour is presented in pop culture and the media. * The Fifth Estate *The powerful argument that repeatedly surfaces throughout Sarah McFarland Taylor's book – that while acts of ecopiety are often nice and microscopically positive, they are essentially meaningless when faced with the global scale problem they seek to combat [...] is robust, well researched, and close to irrefutable. * Geographical Magazine *A wake-up call for all those who want to be good stewards of our planet but don’t necessarily know what they should be doing. Untangles the web of conflicting narratives, pulls back the curtain on our psyche, and shows us the roots of corporate manipulation in media. * Brontide Journal *An astute analysis of certain features of contemporary American culture, Ecopiety addresses an important question: what should we do to make the world a more sustainable place for all? ... An interesting and timely book. * Interpretation *The cases considered are extraordinary: erotic fiction interweaving ecopiety and consumopiety, automotive purity and trucker pollution, carbon sin-tracking apps, celebrities performing green, vampires turning vegetarian, corpses as media for living on naturally, tattoos identifying humans with endangered species, green hip-hop advancing social inclusion, and more. … Admirably, against the odds, Sarah McFarland Taylor does not contribute to eco-pessimism but advances what I would call an interpretive ethics of story, performance, and play as means for shaping the future. ... for the study of religion this theoretically informed, meticulously detailed, and surprising exploration of religious circulations through media, markets, and moral incongruities is transformative. -- David Chidester * Religion Journal *Wow! It is rare that one has the chance to preview a work which displays this level of intellectual virtuosity. Taylors work occupies an important intersection between religious studies and media/cultural studies. . . . An amazing book, which is going to generate lots of interest. -- Henry Jenkins, Author of Convergence CultureThis book could not come at a more urgent time; as the costs of human life and consumerism become clearer in the environmental crises of the planet, MacFarland-Taylor offers us a brilliant, compelling analysis of how discourses of virtue are used to re-direct the global climate crisis from a collective politics to the choices of individual consumers. The book explores green consumer marketing in the frame of ecopiety by examining a variety of practices, from cars to reality television to mediated popular cultural narratives about vampires to green burials, and in the process offers not only a trenchant critique but also possible alternatives to individualist consumption as a way to virtuously “save the planet.” -- Sarah Banet-Weiser, London School of Economics and author of Empowered: Popular Feminism and Popular MisogynyDemonstrates the power of myths of individual moral and social power while teasing out the way resistance and counter readings of dominant narratives are possible in the interactive media world made possible by digital communications.... An important argument that adds to our understanding of environmental issues and lifestyle politics. -- Jeffrey Mahan, Iliff School of TheologyEcopiety is a worthwhile book for anyone who is interested in the role of media and narrative in contemporary environmental discourse…Even activists and policymakers who wish to employ media for green ends stand to benefit from Ecopiety. -- Gabriel Vasquez-Peterson * Environmental Values 31.3 *

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Book SynopsisHow political realities are formed when the government ceases to be a guarantor of rights and democracyNeocitizenship explores how the constellation of political and economic forces of neoliberalism have assailed and arguably dismantled the institutions of modern democratic governance in the U.S. As overtly oligarchical structures of governance replace the operations of representative democracy, the book addresses the implications of this crisis for the practices and imaginaries of citizenship through the lens of popular culture. Rather than impugn the abject citizen-subject who embraces her degraded condition, Eva Cherniavsky asks what new or hybrid forms of civic agency emerge as popular sovereignty recedes. Drawing on a range of political theories, Neocitizenship also suggests that theory is at a disadvantage in thinking the historical present, since its analytical categories are wrought in the very historical contexts whose dissolution we now seek to comprehend. Cherniavsky thus suTrade Review"Sophisticated and fresh, Neocitizenship breathes new life into the discourse on neoliberalism. Cherniavskys provocative study of the emergence of new political subjectivities amid the decline of the nation-state as a guarantor of rights and a repository of popular sovereignty will galvanize conversations around neoliberalism, citizenship, and affective economies. This is a book certain to generate a great deal of heat as well as light." -- Cotten Seiler,author of Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America"Neocitizenshipis an alarming look into a future in which the neoliberal democratic system has fallen apart." * Inverse.com *"I highly recommend this book to readers in American studies, cultural studies, and political theory." * H-Net Reviews *

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Book SynopsisAn up-close look at how porn permeates our culture Pictures of half-naked girls and women can seem to litter almost every screen, billboard, and advertisement in America. Pole-dancing studios keep women fit. Men airdrop their dick pics to female passengers on planes and trains. To top it off, the last American President has bragged about grabbing women by the pussy.This pornification of our society is what Bernadette Barton calls raunch culture. Barton explores what raunch culture is, why it matters, and how it is ruining America. She exposes how internet porn drives trends in programming, advertising, and social media, and makes its way onto our phones, into our fashion choices, and into our sex lives. From twerking and breast implants, to fake nails and push-up bras, she explores just how much we encounter raunch culture on a daily basisporn is the new normal. Drawing on interviews, television shows, movies, and social media, Barton argues that raunch culture matters not because itTrade ReviewZippy and well illustrated, this book persuasively argues that 'equating hypersexualization with sex positivity is a form of Orwellian doublespeak.' * New York Times Book Review *Barton, a professor of sociology and gender studies at Morehead State University, assembles her case against porn and pornification through a blend of pop-culture analysis and interviews (mostly with young women in their 20s)...The Pornification of America is a solid update of the traditional feminist case against porn. * The Washington Post *Once dismissed as a teenage phase, raunch culture is now a path to the presidency. Barton inspires us to take America back. Deftly teasing apart notions of sex positivity, sexual liberation, and radical feminism, she exposes raunch culture's pernicious lie: that pornification is empowerment. And not a moment too soon. -- Lisa Wade, author of American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on CampusFeel anger, rage, or hope. It is impossible to read The Pornification of America without feeling something about the thorny issues of mediated sexual desire in the 21st century. Bernadette Barton writes about the relentless capitalist commodification of female sexiness and the people who participate in it. From incels to pastors to politicians, nobody is exempt from the objectified and self-objectified raunch culture that Barton portrays. This book aims to deprogram readers’ subconscious conditioning and create the mental space to imagine a sex-positive revolution, not merely sexist shadows of that goal. -- Shira Tarrant, author of The Pornography Industry: What Everyone Needs to KnowIn The Pornification of America, Bernadette Barton offers a multi-faceted examination of what she calls 'raunch culture' in American society. She has a sophisticated awareness of feminist debates that are attuned to both protecting women's right to bodily self-determination—and our right to do what we please with our bodies—while simultaneously remaining critical of sexist and racialized cultural commodifications that can have insidious effects on women's sense of feminist freedoms. -- Lynn Chancer, author of After the Rise and Stall of American Feminism: Taking Back a RevolutionIn her timely book, Bernadette Barton shows us how raunch culture has invaded every aspect of our lives—personally, professionally and politically. This book should be used on college campuses across the country to stimulate debate on how we got here, why it matters and what we can do to change it. -- Kathleen A. Bogle, author of Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on CampusThe Pornification of America is an excellent book for considering how sexism shapes popular culture and consequently public vernacular and social relationships. This is a great read for students or for any reader curious about the politics of raunch culture. -- Kristen Barber, author of Styling Masculinity: Gender, Class, and Inequality in the Men's Grooming IndustryBarton argues that something counterintuitive and grave is happening: as our culture becomes increasingly sexualized, it is actually becoming less sex-positive ... Barton is insightful too about the shortcomings of a culture that upholds consent as the best (and too often only) way for girls and everyone else to articulate their feelings about sex, sexual desire, and sexual attention. * Boston Review *A valuable contribution to works about sex, the pornication of culture, feminism and the objectication of women. Undoubtedly, the book has a place in every Gender and Women’s Studies class taught in college, but discussions brought up in the book should start earlier than that, with High School students and between parents/caregivers and children. * Metapsychology *

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Book SynopsisThe promises and conflicts faced by public figures, artists, and leaders of Northeast Los Angeles as they enliven and defend their neighborhoods Los Angeles is well known as a sprawling metropolis with endless freeways that can make the city feel isolating and separate its communities. Yet in the past decade, as Jan Lin argues in Taking Back the Boulevard, there has been a noticeable renewal of public life on several of the city's iconic boulevards, including Atlantic, Crenshaw, Lankershim, Sunset, Western, and Wilshire. These arteries connect neighborhoods across the city, traverse socioeconomic divides and ethnic enclaves, and can be understood as the true locational heart of public life in the metropolis. Focusing especially on the cultural scene of Northeast Los Angeles, Lin shows how these gentrifying communities help satisfy a white middle-class consumer demand for authentic experiences of living on the edge and a spirit of cultural rebellion. These neighborhoods have gone througTrade Review"Taking Back the Boulevard is exemplary in its ability to weave the strands of structure and agency together to show how real gentrified spaces are produced. And just as important, such complexity is delivered with clear prose and riveting stories. Although the book focuses on Northeast Los Angeles, its lessons are generalizable. Scholars and students of gentrification would enjoy reading the book and benefit from engaging with its core arguments. It is at once a labour of love by an established urban sociologist and an important contribution to the sprawling literature on the subject." -- International Journal of Urban and Regional Research"Taking Back the Boulevard is an excellent resource for scholars and researchers who see themselves as public intellectuals, as well as for individuals wishing to engage art and activism in urban communities. The text is accessible, comprehensive, and passionate. Lin offers a stimulating tales for which to approach Northeast L.A., transgenerational activism, and a community’s cycles of cultural and economic transition." -- Social Forces"Jan Lin has written both a meticulous and a passionate documentation of the long waves of investment, migration, and cultural expression that have shaped Northeast Los Angeles since the heyday of Anglo urbanization. From bohemianism and bike lanes, to tacos and lattes, Lin shows how embedded cultural patterns and determined community activists keep the vitality of the streets even in our most automobile-dependent city." -- Sharon Zukin,Author of Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places"In this heartfelt and meticulously researched history of the boulevard-lined neighborhoods of Northeast L.A., Jan Lin has given us a crucial and timely investigation into how local cultural and community movements, together with struggles over the right to the city, shape our contemporary urban landscapeWith imaginative theorization and brilliantly clear prose, Lin attends to the contradictions and conflicts of the current moment, as well as new, radical possibilities for a green and equitable city that are now also within sight." -- Miriam Greenberg,Co-editor of The City is the Factory: New Solidarities and Spatial Tactics in an Urban Age"Jan Lin has produced a deeply researched and beautifully written examination of more than a century of neighborhood change and activism in northeast Los Angeles ... Lin aims to take back the boulevards as a topic for urban sociology so that the continuity, growth, change, conflict, and drama of street life get a hearing in their own right. At this he succeeds admirably, and students of urban sociology at all levels have something to learn from entering into the world Lin has so skillfully depicted." * American Journal of Sociology *

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Book SynopsisIntroduces key terms, research traditions, debates, and histories for American Studies and Cultural Studies in an updated editionSince its initial publication, scholars and students alike have turned to Keywords for American Cultural Studies as an invaluable resource for understanding key terms and debates in the fields of American studies and cultural studies. As scholarship has continued to evolve, this revised and expanded third edition offers indispensable meditations on new and developing concepts used in American studies, cultural studies, and beyond.Designed as a uniquely print-digital hybrid publication, this Keywords volume collects 114 essays, each focused on a single term such as America, culture, diversity, or religion. More than forty of the essays have been significantly revised for this new edition, and there are nineteen completely new keywords, including crucial additions such as biopolitics, data, debt, and intersectionality. Throug

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Book SynopsisMonsters arrived in 2011 - and now they are back. Not only do they continue to live in our midst, but, as historian Scott Poole shows, these monsters are an important part of our past - a hideous obsession America cannot seem to escape.Trade Review"Poole brings to life American horror stories by framing them within folk belief, religion, and popular culture, broadly unraveling the idea of the monster. Thanks to Poole's insights we see the ubiquity of the monster lurking in and around us." John David Smith, Charles H. Stone Distinguished Professor of American History, The University of North Carolina at CharlottePoole's connection of the monster to American history is a kind of Creature Features meets American cultural history. Here we not only meet such monsters but also discover America's cultural monstrosity." John W. Morehead, editor, www.TheoFantastique.com"An unexpected guilty pleasure! Poole invites us into an important and enlightening, if disturbing, conversation about the very real monsters that inhabit the dark spaces of Americas past." J. Gordon Melton, Director, Institute for the Study of American Religion"A well informed, thoughtful, and indeed frightening angle of vision to a persistent and compelling American desire to be entertained by the grotesque and the horrific." Gary Laderman, Professor of American Religious History and Cultures, Emory University"With Monsters in America, W. Scott Poole has given us a guidebook for a journey into nightmare territory. Insightful and brilliant!" Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Patient Zero and Dead of Night"Poole ... has set the bar ridiculously high for any future research exploring the locus of historical and cultural studies, particularly as it pertains to the horrific. ... Monsters In America challenges, enlightens, and, quite honestly, frightens in its prescient view of American history, as well as the seeming ubiquity of the monsters of our past and probable future." The Crawlspace"... one of the best reads of the year." Dave Canfield, Fangoria"Monsters in America does a bang-up job of demonstrating how our culture helps us achieve some sort of understanding about our world and our lives. Poole's examples are well-chosen and well-explicated. It is a frightening world we live in, yet the horrific things in our literature and culture play a vital part in helping us reach some understanding, and even some peace about them." Greg Garrett, Faithful Citizenship blogger and author of One Fine Potion: The Literary Magic of Harry Potter"Numerous scholars explore the cultural and political implications of monster and horror films for the times from which they emerge.... Few scholars connect such implications across broader expanses of time to reveal how intrinsically monsters and the horrific have been bound up in the history of America. Even fewer scholars do so as adeptly and as entertainingly as W. Scott Poole." J. Ryan Parker, Pop Theology"... incredibly rewarding and fulfilling reading.... Monsters in America has without a doubt earned a spot on my favorite books of 2011. Highly recommended." Jenn's Bookshelves"In Monsters in America, Scott Poole expertly weaves together folklore, media studies, and some of the more disturbing moments in American history to remind us of the vital roles monsters play in our culture. The new edition extends this analysis to shed light on some of the darker developments in recent American political culture. From early American ghost stories to Jordan Peeles Get Out (2017), Scott Poole expertly tracks the importance of monsters and monstrosity in American culture." Kendall R. Phillips, Syracuse University, author of A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema"Monsters in America is lively and entertaining throughout. The book's unusual range is one of its contributions; its freshness of juxtaposition is another." Elizabeth Young, Mount Holyoke College, American Historical Review (February 2013)A captivating read... Amanda Rock, Slug (October 2014)Monsters in America is an important contribution, and it will be enjoyed by literary and cultural historians alike. Nicole K. Konopka, American Studies (58:4)[Pooles] book is sufficiently clear and engaging for general readers to enjoy and would make a worthwhile addition to undergraduate course in American history or culture. Aaron John Gulyas, Nova ReligioHistorian W. Scott Poole distinguishes himself by focusing on the American context, providing a history told through the personified expressions of our anxieties and fears. In the follow-up to his first book, Satan in America, Poole has now turned his attention to the monsters that inhabit American cinema and American imaginations." Christopher James Blythe, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture

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Book SynopsisLiterary Celebrity in Canada explores that space, drawing on current theories of celebrity and questioning their tendency to view fame as an empty phenomenon.Trade Review"Lorraine York's brief study of Canadian literary celebrity joins the growing pantheon of theory and criticism urging its readers to re-evaluate their assumptions ... it remains accessible as a shot across the bow of staid academic considerations of Canadian literature." -- Owen Percy Canadian Literature

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Book SynopsisIn an increasingly polarized world, Chasing We-ness champions ideas for cultivating the ability to work with others in a way that celebrates our shared humanity.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Introduction Part I. Framing We-ness Part II. The We-ness Landscape Part III. We-ness: Resources and Skills Part IV. Our Path Forward 1. Self-Meanings 2. Motives 3. Social Domains 4. Judging Outcomes: The Good, Bad, and Mixed 5. Navigating Transitions 6. We-ness, Empathy, and Altruism 7. Leadership 8. Transforming Our Future Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe first book-length study of the acclaimed artist who brought journalistic reportage to comicsContributors: Georgiana Banita, Lan Dong, Ann D''Orazio, Kevin C. Dunn, Alexander Dunst, Jared Gardner, Edward C. Holland, Isabel Macdonald, Brigid Maher, Ben Owen, Rebecca Scherr, Maureen Shay, Marc Singer, Richard Todd Stafford, and Øyvind VågnesThe Comics of Joe Sacco addresses the range of his award-winning work, from his early comics stories as well as his ground-breaking journalism Palestine (1993) and Safe Area to Gorade (2000), to Footnotes in Gaza (2009) and his most recent book The Great War (2013), a graphic history of World War I.First in the new series Critical Approaches to Comics Artists, this edited volume explores Sacco''s comics journalism, and features established and emerging scholars from comics studies, cultural studies, geography, literary studies, political science, and communication studies. Sacco''s work has already found a place in some of the foundational scholars

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Book SynopsisThe early 1980s saw a revolution in mainstream comics as new methods of publishing and distribution broadened the possibilities. Among those artists utilizing these new methods, Chester Brown quickly developed a cult following. This volume collects interviews covering all facets of the cartoonist's long career and includes several pieces from now-defunct periodicals and fanzines.

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Book SynopsisFrom Bruce Lee to Samurai Champloo, how Asian fictions fuse with African American creative sensibilitiesIn this study, Crystal S. Anderson explores the cultural and political exchanges between African Americans, Asian Americans, and Asians over the last four decades. To do so, Anderson examines such cultural productions as novels (Frank Chin''s Gunga Din Highway [1999], Ishmael Reed''s Japanese by Spring [1992], and Paul Beatty''s The White Boy Shuffle [1996]); films (Rush Hour 2 [2001], Unleashed [2005], and The Matrix trilogy [1999-2003]); and Japanese animation (Samurai Champloo [2004]), all of which feature cross-cultural conversations. In exploring the ways in which writers and artists use this transferral, Anderson traces and tests the limits of how Afro-Asian cultural production interrogates conceptions of race, ethnic identity, politics, and transnational exchange.Ultimately, this book reads contemporary black/Asian cultural fusions through the recurrent themes established by t

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Book SynopsisAN EXPANSIVE TREATMENT OF THE MEANINGS AND QUALITIES OF ORIGINAL AND REMADE AMERICAN HORROR MOVIESIn Making and Remaking Horror in the 1970s and 2000s author David Roche takes up the assumption shared by many fans and scholars that original horror movies are more disturbing, and thus better than the remakes. He assesses the qualities of movies, old and recast, according to criteria that include subtext, originality, and cohesion. With a methodology that combines a formalist and cultural studies approach, Roche sifts aspects of the American horror movie that have been widely addressed (class, the patriarchal family, gender, and the opposition between terror and horror) and those that have been somewhat neglected (race, the Gothic, style, and verisimilitude). Containing seventy-eight black and white illustrations, the book is grounded in a close comparative analysis of the politics and aesthetics of four of the most significant independent American horror movies of the 1970s--The Texas C

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Book SynopsisIt has become an axiom in comic studies that comics is a language, not a genre. In Comics and Language, Hannah Miodrag challenges many of the assumptions about the grammar and formal characteristics of comics, and offers a more nuanced, theoretical framework that she argues will better serve the field by offering a consistent means for communicating critical theory in the scholarship.

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Book SynopsisContributions by Jan Baetens, Alain Boillat, Philippe Bourdier, Laura Caraballo, Thomas Faye, Pierre Floquet, Jean-Paul Gabilliet, Christophe Gelly, Nicolas Labarre, Benoît Mitaine, David Roche, Isabelle Schmitt-Pitiot, Dick Tomasovic, and Shannon Wells-LassagneBoth comics studies and adaptation studies have grown separately over the past twenty years. Yet there are few in-depth studies of comic books and adaptations together. Available for the first time in English, this collection pores over the phenomenon of comic books and adaptation, sifting through comics as both sources and results of adaptation. Essays shed light on the many ways adaptation studies inform research on comic books and content adapted from them. Contributors concentrate on fidelity to the source materials, comparative analysis, forms of media, adaptation and myth, adaptation and intertextuality, as well as adaptation and ideology.After an introduction that assesses adaptation

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