American Popular Culture Commons^™

Rodcon, Program, 2015, University Of Northern Iowa

RodCon Documents

Saturday, March 28, 2015 - 11:00am to 4:00pm

Program distributed at the event.

Welcome to the 2nd Annual Rod Library Mini Comic Con. The event is free and open to the public. Our goal is to provide an open forum for discussion about the theme of a networked society focused on popular culture, comics, and gaming. Our panel presentations are also focused on providing a forum for discussion about the complex issues of race, gender, class and social justice in popular entertainment. To see your entry, use the hashtag #RodCon15

Rodcon, Flier, 2015, University Of Northern Iowa

RodCon Documents

Saturday, March 28, 2015 - 11:00am to 4:00pm

Flier used in promotion of the event.

John Lennon: A Day In The Rye, Derek S. Ellis

Goldenrod Poetry Festival

No abstract provided.

Ua12/2/2 2015 Talisman: Resurgence, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

2015 Talisman yearbook.

• Osborne Sam. Into the Woods – Big To-Do Music & Arts Festival
• Spalding, Shelley. The Outliers – Greeks
• Badjie, Haddy. The Right to Live – Racism
• Gibson, Helen. Net Worth – Soccer
• Greer, John. Sustaining Seasons – Sustainability
• Wegert, Sally. Bloom – Eva Ross
• Cislo, Everett. Harvest – Hemp
• Kolb, William. Preserve – John All
• Voorhees, Jessica. Making Strides – Track & Field
• Greer, John. The Science Guy – Bill Nye
• Cole, Tanner. Lip Service – Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Belknap, Abby. Race to the Senate
• Gibson, Helen. Game of Loans – Student Financial Aid
• Belknap, Abby. …

Showtime: Pop Culture's Impact On Society's View Of The Lgbtq Population, Hope Comer, Jaime D. Bower, Narketta Sparkman

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

Popular culture is an influential aspect that shapes society. Popular culture’s impact on society’s view of the LGBTQ population was examined in the context of video media representations. Students at a Mid-Atlantic university (n = 7) were presented with representations of LGBTQ individuals in television media during two focus groups. Participants completed pre-and-post-test qualitative surveys regarding their impact and perceptions. Responses were coded to identify themes of the target populations. Misrepresentations, perpetuated stereotypes, changing perspectives, advocacy, personal connection, differing types of media representation, and lack of representation were themes identified throughout participant responses about the varying popular culture mediums.

Speed And Resolution In The Age Of Technological Reproducibility, Shawn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, …

Bessie [Film Review], Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

Bessie opens with an arresting shot of Queen Latifah as singer Bessie Smith, dressed in the white costume familiarized by a widely reproduced photograph, with blue tones emphasizing both interiority (her eyes are closed, and the music viewers hear is playing in her head), and the blues genre associated with her. When the shift to every day colors returns viewers to the movie’s present (1927), an unsmiling Bessie walks through an adoring backstage crowd, press cameras flashing, into a waiting car. Rachel Portman’s score suggests foreboding; the next long shot shows Bessie framed in a doorway as she calls out …

Scribblescholar Was Here: Confessional Notes Of A Vandal Academic, Clay Shields

Theses and Dissertations--English

As a (former) vandal-punk in the academy, I often fear succumbing to Ivory Tower Stockholm syndrome. The identities I perform, vandal-punk and scholar, ideologically clash to the point that they often feel irreconcilable. By codemeshing the high-low discourses associated with these adopted cultures, I attempt to disrupt any hierarchal privileging of either, instead searching for a way to live with and harness both.

The American Dime Museum: Bodily Spectacle And Social Midways In Turn-Of-The-Century American Literature And Culture, James C. Fairfield

Theses and Dissertations--English

The freak played a significant role in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century entertainment, but its significance extended beyond such venues as sideshows and minstrel shows. This dissertation examines the freak as an avatar emblematic of several issues, such as class and race, traditionally focused on in studies of Turn-of-the Century American literature and culture.

Disability and freakishness are explored as central to late-nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Americans’ identity. Freakishness is applied to a series of ways in which Americans in this period constructed their identity, including race, gender, and socioeconomic class, showing the dual role that the freak played for many …

Previously Undocumented Art Criticism By Walt Whitman, Wendy J. Katz

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Whitman’s “Letters from a Travelllling Bachelor,” written for the New York Sunday Dispatch (October 14, 1849, through January 6, 1850) are well known, as is his practice of contributing news about Brooklyn and Brooklyn artists to the Dispatch as well as to other newspapers like the Evening Post.1 But his extended description of a painting by Jesse Talbot, Encampment of the Caravan, in the Evening Post (“Encampment of the Caravan,” April 29, 1851; p. 1), and his critique of the National Academy of Design annual exhibition in the Dispatch of the following year (“An Hour at the Academy of Design,” …

Moving Foward?: Problematic Ideologies In Twenty-First Century Fairy Tale Films, Alyson Kilmer

All Master's Theses

Fairy tales, as a reflection of our values and belief systems, are crucial in shaping and maintaining cultural ideologies. In the twenty-first century, cinematic fairy tales have the unique position of representing such values in an expansive and expeditious manner. Audiences must therefore be critically conscious of the messages promoted by these tales. An analysis of the five most popular contemporary fairy tale films, Disney’s Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and Disney’s Frozen (2013) and Maleficent (2014), revealed minimal attempts to propitiate critical audiences in regard to changing cultural values, but …

#Flawless: The Intersection Of Celebrity Culture And New Media In The Modern Feminist Movement, Laurel Schwartz

Scripps Senior Theses

People have organized around gender equality in modern America for the last century. However, with the advent of new technology, people largely organize in around social movements in online spaces. This thesis explores the ways in which new media expands a popular understanding of the Feminist movement.

Queer Content In Science Fiction Allegory And Analogue: Is It In Disguise?, Anna C. Marburger

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis performs a textual analysis of two for-profit science fiction texts in which the authors implanted queer content: Bryan Singer's X-Men films and James Robert's Transformers comic series, "More Than Meets the Eye". The argument incorporates queer (referring to attraction and gender variance) media representation and western identity politics lenses into its critique.

By interrogating reality through the masquerade of an impossible universe, science fiction affects how subversive a text can be. When authors designate the natural and the unnatural in a strange universe, they designate what and who belongs in our society. Whatever they imagine has an effect …

Perversions Of The American Dream In The 20th Century Novel: Requiem For A Dream And The Great Gatsby, Mary C. Menzemer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The American Dream’s outlines are pretty clear: find a good job, make enough money, raise a good family, love your neighbors and friends, and uphold American laws. In this essay, I am going to explore what happens when the dream’s goals are darkened, corrupted, and attempted to be found by unconventional means and shortcut through the lens of two novels written in the 20^th century, at the height of the American Dream’s popularity: Requiem for a Dream and The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, at a time when a slew of immigrants were seeking better …

A Digital Dud? New Media, Participation, And Voting In The 2004 And 2008 United States Presidential Elections, Jeremy D. Hickman

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

This dissertation analyzes the linkages between new media and the possible emergence of the youngest members of the voting population (the “digital native” generation, who have grown up concurrently with the rise of the internet as a means of communication). The main question is whether this digital native generation will have more civic and political participation due to their use of online news sources and social media communication on news media websites and elsewhere on the internet. Regression analyses are used to explain civic and political participation, using American National Election Studies (ANES) from the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections. …

Long Live The Evil Queen: Once Upon A Time's Evolved Villain, Frank S. Lombari

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Mirror on the wall, who's the fairest Queen of all? In today's pop culture, many traditional villains are beginning to be turned into antiheroes. ABC's television show Once Upon a Time has taken a number of fairy tale villains and provided them both a background and character growth. Specifically, the adaptation of the Evil Queen has shifted from primary antagonist to redeemed hero over the first three seasons. The show also displays her in the real-world rather than just a fairy tale universe. The author claims that this radical development occurs due three essential aspects: the Evil Queen and Snow …

Edgar Allan Poe And Science: Unraveling The Plot Of The Universe, Murray S. Ellison

Theses and Dissertations

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) lived at the perfect time to write about several of the most dramatic technological developments ever recorded in history. Up until the nineteenth century, professional scientists were almost the exclusive agents for writing about science. However, during this period, non-professional writers also emerged as important conveyors of popular science news to the public. Though Poe was a lay writer, his popular writing conveyed several of the most important new discoveries of the Industrial Age. He also projected his views about how nineteenth-century technologies might impact civilizations of the future. Poe’s writing offers a key example of …

Living In A Gangsta’S Paradise: Dr. C. Delores Tucker’S Crusade Against Gansta Rap Music In The 1990s, Jordan A. Conway

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines Dr. C. DeLores Tucker’s efforts to abolish the production and distribution of gangsta rap to the American youth. Though her efforts were courageous and daring, they were not sufficient. The thesis will trace Tucker’s crusade beginning in 1992 through the end of the 1990s. It brings together several themes in post-World War II American history, such as the issues of race, gender, popular culture, economics, and the role of government. The first chapter thematically explores Tucker’s crusade, detailing her methodology and highlighting pivotal events throughout the movement. The second chapter discusses how opposition from rap artists, and …

Play Doh's Cave And The Pursuit Of The American Cream, Becky S. Sellinger

Theses and Dissertations

Take a minute. Imagine Wiley Coyote and Road Runner are in a domestic partnership. What would that look like? Close your eyes and Pause for 30 seconds. Don’t you see? Coyote never catches up. They keep running faster and faster. Everything in the house gets swept into the whirlwind they’ve created in their paths - the books, the shelves, the bed, and the desk lamp. Their circling movement creates a vacuum, which ultimately causes the entire structure to implode upon itself.

This text is an examination of my work and its relationship to the economic and the domestic. The metaphor …

Tell Sir Thomas More We've Got Another Failed Attempt: Utopia And The Burning Man Project, Gracen Lila Kovacik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Burning Man, a weeklong experience in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, has become an oasis for those looking to escape the corporatized grasp of modern culture. Burning Man serves as a reprieve from judgment and allows participants to embrace and perform their inner identities. The intensions of Burning Man have been widely debated, from scholars concentrating on the rejection of consumerism to analyzing sacred space and religious connectivity for festivalgoers. What deserves further analysis, however, is the utopian nature of the event. I will explore previous utopian attempts--literary, political, etc.--and define what characteristics from those societies were present during the inception …