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American Popular Culture Commons

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Full-Text Articles in American Popular Culture

Resurrection: Representations Of The Black Church In Contemporary Popular Culture, Rachel J. Daniel Nov 2014

Resurrection: Representations Of The Black Church In Contemporary Popular Culture, Rachel J. Daniel

Doctoral Dissertations

From 1997 to 2013, there have been multiple representations of the black church in popular culture. African American artists have always explored spirituality within black communities; in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, the increasing fame of Tyler Perry, T.D. Jakes, Steve Harvey, and other prominent African American Christians has placed black church culture on the center stage of American mainstream media. This dissertation examines contemporary black Christian popular fiction, stage performances, black church films, and rap music. These representations demonstrate that black church culture is distinct from secular black popular culture and white evangelical Christian …


Whovians And Directioners: Challenging The Fangirl Identity, Brianna Vancant May 2014

Whovians And Directioners: Challenging The Fangirl Identity, Brianna Vancant

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

Using notions from fan blogs and fan theory, this project analyzes the inconsistencies surrounding the phenomenon of so-called fangirls in the Doctor Who and One Direction worlds. The term fangirl is usually defined as an irrational adolescent female who is only a fan of very specific types of entertainment because of factors that are perceived by other fans as superficial and irrelevant. In contemporary music and television fandom, these fangirls are often criticized and policed by other fans, many times disregarded as not ‘true’ fans. The project studies this distorted perception and how it leads to misconceptions about the wider …


When Ana Becomes The Protagonist: Eating Disorder Narratives, The Pursuit Of Thinness And Social Resistance On The Internet, Nadezh Mulholland May 2014

When Ana Becomes The Protagonist: Eating Disorder Narratives, The Pursuit Of Thinness And Social Resistance On The Internet, Nadezh Mulholland

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

There is media concern that books about eating disorders are harmful to young readers. However, there is little research on how readers interpret the content of novels and memoirs featuring characters with eating disorders. This project considers the thinspiration images used as motivation to lose weight on so-called pro-ana and pro-mia social networks for people with eating disorders, and draws parallels between thinspiration and images used on the covers of eating disorder books. This paper uses a Gramscian lens to dismantle media claims by analyzing the interactions between members of eating disorder social networks, showing that website users tum to …


Dinny Gordon, Intellectual: Anne Emery's Postwar Junior Fiction And Girls' Intellectual Culture, Jill E. Anderson Apr 2014

Dinny Gordon, Intellectual: Anne Emery's Postwar Junior Fiction And Girls' Intellectual Culture, Jill E. Anderson

University Library Faculty Publications

In her Dinny Gordon series (1958-1965), junior novelist Anne Emery’s heroine manifests intellectual desire, a passionate engagement in the life of the mind along with the desire to connect with like-minded others. Within a genre which focused on socialization and dating, in Dinny, Emery normalizes a studious, inner-directed, yet feminine heroine, passionate about ancient history rather than football captains. Emery’s endorsement of the pleasure Dinny takes in intellectual work, and the friends and boyfriends Dinny collects, challenge stereotypes of intellectual girls as dateless isolates while suggesting an alternative model of girlhood operating within apparent conformism to postwar “good girl” standards.


Facebook, Made In Harvard: Youth, Stereotypes, And Exclusivity In The Information Age, Ying-Bei Wang Feb 2014

Facebook, Made In Harvard: Youth, Stereotypes, And Exclusivity In The Information Age, Ying-Bei Wang

Ying-bei Wang

In the paper, I conduct a film analysis of The Social Network and examine its portrayal of Facebook’s founders and collaborators. I argue that the film, while providing a new image of geek culture and youth’s role in digital culture, has incorporated the debasing views against women and people of color that is very common in the culture. The enormous popularity of the film indicates how this stereotype is widely accepted. Meanwhile, consulting literature that analyzes culture of the Information Age, I look at the power hierarchies within the culture, where young and white men are more visible and their …


Women And Watchmen: Opening Alan Moore's Refrigerator, Sally Ferguson Jan 2014

Women And Watchmen: Opening Alan Moore's Refrigerator, Sally Ferguson

Honors Theses

Zack Snyder's film adaption of Watchmen was my first exposure to the rabid side of the comic book enthusiasts. During that year, I took tottering steps towards comic books and superheroes, but the clamor of frenzied supporters of the film battling zealous purists nearly blew me off my feet. Alan Moore--the name reverberated through the internet and spilled onto the sidewalks in front of the movie theater. I pondered the identity of this individual for an infinitesimal amount of time before contenting myself with Batman for a few years. Years later, various enthusiasts were singing his praises to me, …