American Popular Culture Commons^™

The Mixed Reception Of The Hamilton Premiere In Puerto Rico, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in The Atlantic, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders about the challenges of premiering the famed Broadway musical, Hamilton, during a time of political discord in the aftermath of 2017's Hurricane Maria, in Puerto Rico.

[Review Of] Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity, Anne Fountain

Faculty Publications

[Review of] Cuba - Cuban Underground Hip Hop: Black Thoughts, Black Revolution, Black Modernity. By Tanya L. Saunders . Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. 390. $90.00 cloth; $29.95 paper.

The Book That Made Me: A Girl, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this installment of The Book That Made Me, a series from Public Books reflecting on the books that have changed our lives, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner reflects on the freedom he received—to become a whole other person, in a whole other place—from an unexpected source.

Sing A New Song To The City: Ambient Rhetoric And Urban Hymns, Adam J. Copeland

Faculty Publications

Hymns are a key component of how Christians express their faith. But many of these hymns do represent the rhythms and sensibilities of an older and largely agrarian world. Using the concept of “ambient rhetoric,” Adam Copeland suggests that it is time for other hymns that represent the ethos of daily life in an increasingly urbanized world, hymns that will speak to the realities of urban culture.

Lin-Manuel Meets Moana, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in Public Books, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner wonders whether a Disney musical and a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical want the same thing.

Harry Potter And Hamilton From The Stage To The Page, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner

Faculty Publications

In this article originally published in Public Books, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner offers commentary on the two best-selling plays on record, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Hamilton. Specifically, Pollack-Pelzner examines how the Anglo-American world’s favorite orphans play at home, adopted, as it were, from the stage to the page.

"A Date Which Will Live In Infamy": College Newspaper Reporting Of U.S. Entry Into Wwii, Jill Crane, Marcella Lesher

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sports Fandom: Worthless Idol And Wonderful Thing, Rolf A. Jacobson

Faculty Publications

When thinking about the spectacle of sports fandom in light of the Bible, two assertions immediately come to mind. First, sports have become—for much of North American or Western society—an idol. Second, sports have also co-opted many aspects of the life of faith. These two immediate perspectives are so obvious that one is left to wonder whether there is anything more to say about sports in light of the Bible. Maybe there is.

Woody Guthrie, America's Merry Prankster, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

A “merry prankster” is a colorful person, real or legendary, who pokes fun at authority and the rich, powerful, and arrogant. The merry prankster appears small and powerless, but manages to outwit his opponents, often summing up the situation with witty one-liners — signal examples from medieval history and folklore are Mullah Nasreddin and Till Eugenspiel. In many ways, Woody Guthrie is an American merry prankster. Small in stature but large of intelligence, he used his wits, musical creativity, and people skills to defend the poor against the rich and powerful. He consistently made enemies of the privileged and those …

Sundance Film Festival / Computer Generated Imagery / Video Game Industry / Battlestar Galactica / Pageants / Stereophonic Sound, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

Many people are unaware of how influential Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), have been on American popular culture. Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon parts the curtain and looks behind the scenes at the little-known but important influence Mormons have had on popular culture in the United States and beyond. Included here are six sidebars that reveal some of the more fascinating contribution Mormons have made to American popular culture.

Profiles Of Selected Mormon Actors, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

“Profiles of Selected Mormon Actors” provides brief profiles of over 80 Mormon actors and actresses, including some biographical information and career highlights. This chapter appears in the first volume of Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon (Praeger 2013), a comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture, providing an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic.

Profiles Of Selected Mormon Athletes In Professional Sports, J. Michael Hunter

Faculty Publications

“Profiles of Selected Mormon Athletes in Professional Sports” provides profiles with career highlights of over 200 Mormon athletes in professional sports, including baseball, basketball, bodybuilding, boxing, football, golf, hockey, racing, running, volleyball, and wrestling. This chapter appears in the second volume of Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon (Praeger 2013), a comprehensive treatment of Mormons and popular culture, providing an introduction and wide-ranging overview of the topic.

"Thrown On Their Own Resources": Collaboration As Survival In Imitation Of Life, Kristi Branham

Faculty Publications

The article presents an analysis of the film adaptation of "Imitation of Life," a 1933 novel by Fannie Hurst. It states that the repetition of the story across the first half of the twentieth century shows its resonance for U.S. audiences. It mentions that the woman question and the race question are brought together in the passing story in both the 1934 and 1959 film versions of the novel.

A Flag Is Flipped And A Nation Flaps: The Politics And Patriotism Of The First International World Series, Todd J. Wiebe

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lakewood Farm: The Private Zoo That The Public Loved, Geoffrey D. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Lakewood Farm: The Private Zoo That the Public Loved is an article concerning the private zoo in Holland, Michigan, that was owned by Chicago coal merchant George Fulmer Getz and helped form the Illionois based Brookfiekd Zoo and John Ball Zoo of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

From Pulp Hero To Superhero: Culture, Race, And Identity In American Popular Culture, 1900-1940, Julian C. Chambliss, William L. Svitavsky

Faculty Publications

Adventure characters in the pulp magazines and comic books of the early twentieth century reflected development in the ongoing American fascination with heroic figures. As established figures such as the cowboy became disconnected from everyday experiences of Americans, new popular fantasies emerged, providing readers with essentialist action heroes whose adventures stylized the struggle of the American everyman with a modern, industrialized, heterogeneous world. Popular characters such as Tarzan, Conan, the Shadow, and Doc Savage perpetuated the individualistic archetype Americans associated with the frontier cowboy and the struggles of manifest destiny while offering the fantastic adventure, exoticism, and escapism that modernity …

Revelation And The Left Behind Novels, Craig R. Koester

Faculty Publications

The Left Behind novels appeal because they affirm God's control of history in the face of violence and moral decay. Our challenge is to be more biblical than Left Behind, not less biblical to hear Revelation's call to persevere in the face of evil and to trust in the final victory of God and the Lamb.

Built Along The Shores Of Macatawa: The History Of Boat Building In Holland, Michigan, Geoffrey D. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Built Along the Shores of Macatawa: The History of Boat Building in Holland, Michigan is an article concerning the history of ship and boat building in the Holland, Michigan area from 1836-2004.

The Bible And Popular Culture: Engaging Sacred Text In The World Of "Others", Mary E. Hess

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Who Exactly Is Living La Vida Loca: The Legal And Political Consequences Of Latino-Latina Ethnic And Racial Stereotypes In Film And Other Media, Ediberto Román

Faculty Publications

This piece, however, will not simply expose the insidious stereotypes of Latinas and Latinos. It will undertake the more involved task of drawing a nexus between the societal prejudice which leads to the stereotyping and the legal and political consequences that result from it. Specifically, I argue that these media images, myths, metaphors, and stereotypes play a critical role in establishing society's vision of Latinas and Latinos. In other words, these stereotypes serve to reinforce both the characterizations of Latinas and Latinos from the perspectives of both the dominant and the dominated. These stereotypes, in turn, foster and perpetuate two …

Smith On Jenkins, 'Textual Poachers: Television Fans And Participatory Culture', Anne Collins Smith

Faculty Publications

Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 1992. viii + 343 pp. $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-90571-8; $38.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-415-90572-5.

In Textual Poachers, Henry Jenkins examines the underground world of the media fandom, people who create fiction, artwork, and other forms of expression based on television shows. Drawing on a rich theoretical background with sources ranging from feminist literary criticism to cultural anthropology, Jenkins applies and adapts Michel de Certeau's model of "poaching," in which an audience appropriates a text for itself. Taking a stand against the stereotypical portrayal of fans as obsessive …