Popular Culture category: 4839 books
Mechademia 9
Origins
Language: English
Release Date: November 15, 2014
If the source of manga and anime is physically located in Japan, the temptation for many critics and scholars is to ask what aspects of Japanese culture and history gave rise to these media. This ninth volume of Mechademia—an annual collection of critical work on anime and manga—challenges the tendency...
The Warrior Image
Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2011
Images of war saturated American culture between the 1940s and the 1970s, as U.S. troops marched off to battle in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Exploring representations of servicemen in the popular press, government propaganda, museum exhibits, literature, film, and television,...
Cultural Genocide and the Italian-American Legacy
A Culture Hijacked by Popular Myth and Media Misrepresentation
Language: English
Release Date: July 25, 2016
Do you know the name of the Italian-American that the U.S. government now recognizes as the true inventor of the telephone? Do you know the name of the Tuscan colonist who Thomas Jefferson paraphrased in his famous all men are created equal clause in the Declaration of Independence? Did you know that...
by Michelle Orange
Language: English
Release Date: February 12, 2013
Language: English
Release Date: February 12, 2013
Michelle Orange uses the lens of pop culture to decode the defining characteristics of our media-drenched times
In This Is Running for Your Life, Michelle Orange takes us from Beirut to Hawaii to her grandmother's retirement home in Canada in her quest to understand how people behave in a world...
China Pop
How Soap Operas, Tabloids and Bestsellers Are Transforming a Culture
Language: English
Release Date: July 26, 2011
China Pop is a highly original and lively look at the ways that contemporary China is changing by Jianying Zha, a critic hailed in The Nation as "incisive, witty and eloquent all at once--a sort of female, Chinese Jonathan Spence." From her constant contact (and, in many cases, friendships)...
(Not that You Asked)
Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions
Language: English
Release Date: September 11, 2007
How does Steve Almond get himself into so much trouble? Could it be his incessant moralizing? His generally poor posture? The fact that he was raised by a pack of wolves? Frankly, we haven’t got a clue. What we do know is that Almond has a knack for converting his dustups into essays that are both...
Age of Icons
Exploring Philanthrocapitalism in the Contemporary World
Language: English
Release Date: December 9, 2013
Celebrities are increasingly front and centre in public debates on everything from solving world poverty to halting genocide, confronting obesity, and finding spiritual contentment. Bono, Bill Gates, Al Gore, Bob Geldof, Oprah, Madonna, and Angelina Jolie are just some of the entertainers, politicians,...
Elements of Taste
Understanding What We Like and Why
Language: English
Release Date: October 17, 2017
From My Little Pony to the Sex Pistols: An engaging exploration of why we love what we love
Katy Perry. Wes Anderson. Coldplay. Star Wars. Hamilton. Gilmore Girls. We all have our most and least favorite things. But why?
In this smart, funny, and well-researched book, Benjamin Errett...
Post-Millennial Gothic
Comedy, Romance and the Rise of Happy Gothic
Language: English
Release Date: February 23, 2017
Surveying the widespread appropriations of the Gothic in contemporary literature and culture, Post-Millennial Gothic shows contemporary Gothic is often romantic, funny and celebratory. Reading a wide range of popular texts, from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series through Tim Burton's Gothic film adaptations...
by Signe Bergstrom
Language: English
Release Date: January 2, 2018
Language: English
Release Date: January 2, 2018
A gorgeous, authorized celebration of one of the most popular and enduring Super Heroes of all time—Wonder Woman—that chronicles the life and times of this pop-culture phenomenon and image of women’s strength and power, from her origins and role as a founding member of the Justice League to...
Getting Loose
Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s
Language: English
Release Date: April 27, 2007
From “getting loose” to “letting it all hang out,” the 1970s were filled with exhortations to free oneself from artificial restraints and to discover oneself in a more authentic and creative life. In the wake of the counterculture of the 1960s, anything that could be made to yield to a more...
Bending Steel
Modernity and the American Superhero
Language: English
Release Date: July 16, 2015
“Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound . . . It’s Superman!” Bending Steel examines the historical origins and cultural significance of Superman and his fellow American crusaders. Cultural historian Aldo J. Regalado asserts...
Demanding Respect
The Evolution of the American Comic Book
Language: English
Release Date: April 7, 2009
How is it that comic books—the once reviled form of lowbrow popular culture—are now the rage for Hollywood blockbusters, the basis for bestselling video games, and the inspiration for literary graphic novels? In Demanding Respect, Paul Lopes immerses himself in the discourse and practices of this...
Okinawa, Japan
The People, History, World War II, Culture and Tradition. Travel and Tourism
Language: English
Release Date: October 14, 2017
Okinawa, Japan. The People, History, World War II, Culture and Tradition. Travel and Tourism. Before Okinawa, there was Ryukyu, an independent kingdom ruled by its kings, its people seafarers prospering through trade with China and other neighboring countries. In 1609, Ryukyu was invaded by Satsuma...