American Popular Culture Commons^™

Stanley Kubrick, Jewish Filmmaker: A Review Essay, Michael Gibson

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a review of two books: Nathan Abrams, Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018), and David Mikics, Stanley Kubrick: American Filmmaker (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020).

Listen Like Thieves - Using Pop Music To Teach Literary Analysis, Foster Engagement, And Build Positive Relationships, William Visco

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

It has been said that teachers are some of the greatest thieves in the world, stealing ideas and altering them to fit their classes. A resource that is being "stolen from" and increasingly used in classrooms is that of pop culture. I have found that one of the most easily accessible forms of pop culture to use effectively and efficiently is that of popular music. Popular music spans generations and connects millions. I’ll discuss the benefits of connecting curriculum to pop music in order to enrich classroom lessons, enhance student's ability to do literary analysis, and actively engage students while …

“Telling The Trauma: Fiction Of Black Lives & Death”, Frank Dobson

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Black trauma and death, particularly by racially motivated violence, represents a significant contemporary crisis in America. Even prior to the Black Lives Matter movement of recent years, several Black writers chronicled historical incidents of such deaths. Philadelphia Fire (2005), by John Edgar Wideman, is a novel inspired by the 1985 police bombing of the Move compound and the resultant deaths of eleven Black people and the destruction by fire of a Black neighborhood. Those Bones Are Not My Child (1999), by Toni Cade Bambara examines the serial killings during the early 1980’s known as the Atlanta Child Murders. Rendered Invisible: …

Happily Ever After: An Analysis Of Romance Novels, William Kirtley

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

A current plaintive cry of, "I need a book!" is not unusual, yet fulfilling that need in the deadly 2020 coronavirus pandemic is often a godsend. For most, the new normal is unfamiliar territory. However, human beings are adaptable, and often amazingly creative in satisfying a need for escape and distraction. For many (17%) in this difficult time, that is the romance novel. This least respected, most popular genre, written by women for women, represents a cornerstone of popular culture. It is part of what is left after the literati decree what books belong to the canon and what books …

How Pop Cultures Makes For Better Teachers, Jason Olsen

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

In this talk, I will discuss the benefits of pop culture for educators in two distinct but obviously connected ways: (1) how implementing pop culture in classroom curriculum (in both specific and general ways) can engage our students and improve their overall experience and performance and (2) how academic pop culture research and writing paves a path toward teaching excellence (even when the research is not pedagogically driven). As an Associate Professor of English at Utah State University, I can use examples from my own teaching and research (and how I have managed to merge them together), including how I …

Foucault Fantasy Vi: A Role-Playground For Postcolonial Thought, Greg Jones

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

This paper adopts the player-focused approach of studying video games to articulate how Final Fantasy VI (FFVI) can be involved in turning the adherents and objectors of Foucault’s discursive approach toward one another in conversation. It advances the thesis that FFVI’s video game experiences – 1) building friendships between members and victims of the Empire, 2) exploring a world ruined by a maniacal striving for power, and 3) confronting radically destructive despair with a shared sense of life-preserving human connectivity – are avenues for authentic and constructive conversations about the strengths and weaknesses of postcolonial thought that …

Ode To A Gym Teacher: The Music Of The Women's Music Movement, Jessica Freyermuth

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

In the wake of the social and political movements that defined the 1960s, the women’s music movement emerged as a means to cultivate an outlet for young, lesbian musicians who saw themselves as equal to their straight, male counterparts, but were unwilling to compromise their musical integrity in order to perform on major labels. Within this cultural movement were musicians Margie Adam, Meg Christian, Alix Dobkin, Kay Gardner, Holly Near, Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins, and Cris Williamson. Together they created a soundtrack for lesbians throughout the 1970s. There was no unifying genre to the music produced during this movement. Some …

Over The Edge: Suburban Planned Communities, The Second Frontier, And The Rise Of 80s High School Films, Daniel Mcclure

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

While many 1980s youth-oriented films often sold various images of consumption, Over the Edge was one of the early prototypes of the genre, offering a more sober—a more 70s—outlook on youth attempting to find meaning and identity in a corporate-driven, materialistic space called American suburbia. Both a setting for paradise as well as an existential hell for the youth growing up amidst it, the film mobilizes the West and its frontier-like majesty haunting the characters’ space in the planned development of New Granada—a place where families are safe and entrepreneurs can thrive. Specters of the West haunt the film—from the …

Selections From Divinatio Diver, Sculptural Antipathia In Atonement Transcendo, And Mechanika Momento: Creatio Forecaster, Antonie Frankie Aquino

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

It is fated inspiration which penetrates the heart, satisfies the collective soul, and offers its spirit to the vastness of ceremonial vision. Vision becomes sound and sound forms a poetic voice displaced— this displacement radiates a mythologized poetic voice serving as a lyrical object, theogonic lyre, and the genealogical muse. Selected poems from Divinatio Diver, Sculptural Antipathia: In Atonement Transcendo and Mechanika Momento: Creatio Forerunner, the collected poems orchestrate a tryptic voice that dismantles the outward magnitude of the self by subverting the antithetical self through spiritual and organic sensualness.This mythopoeic tripartism simultaneously interconnects with religion, theology, and metaphysics which …

“Something There Is That Doesn’T Love A Wall”: The Wall As Catalyst For Resistance In Frost’S “Mending Wall”, James Altman

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Literature, Resistance, Ecology, Conflict

A Glass Of Fresh, Clean Water From Lake Baikal, Raluca D. Comanelea

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

"A Glass of Fresh, Clean Water from Lake Baikal" is the short story that I will read and discuss as part of the creative writing panel for FWPCA 2021.

The Rhetoric Of Spirituality, Gender, And The Environment In The Wicker Man (1973) And Midsommar (2019), Emma Frances Bloomfield

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

The Wicker Man (1973) and Midsommar (2019) are horror films that address dominant ideologies including the patriarchy, anthropocentrism, and Christianity. Both films have a nature-connected cult that sacrifices for the community and performs rituals informed by pagan eco-spirituality. I perform an ecofeminist rhetorical criticism to analyze how, despite these shared themes, spiritual, gender, and environmental messages differ between the two films. In The Wicker Man, the audience is invited to sympathize with Neil’s character, his Christianity, and his individualistic masculinity as he is sacrificed in the cult’s harvest ritual. Alternatively, the main character in Midsommar, Dani, gets revenge …

She Lives: Bringing The Bride Of Frankenstein To Life In The Comics, Michael Torregrossa

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein recently celebrated its two-hundredth anniversary, and its story remains vibrant in popular culture, especially in the comics medium. I’ve done a number of conference papers in the past devoted to representations of the Creature and his creator, Victor Frankenstein, in comics and comic art, but I’ve only recently begun to look at how the character of the Bride of Frankenstein has been depicted. I’d like to use this opportunity to further that work and look more closely at continuations and recastings of her story. The Bride has no chance at life in Shelley’s novel, as she is …

“Meet The Fantastic Four”: The Origins And Innovations Of The Fantastic Four, William Nesbitt

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

No abstract provided.

Lost & Found: Samuel Fuller’S Tigrero And Accidental Ethnography, Andrew Howe

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

In 1954, Darryl Zanuck commissioned Samuel Fuller to journey to the Amazon and shoot footage of the Karaja tribe, around which the director would construct a screenplay based upon the life of Sasha Siemel, a big game hunter of note. Zanuck had optioned Siemel’s best-selling autobiography, Tigrero. Although John Wayne and Ava Gardner were soon attached to the project, executives at Fox would not sanction a shoot in such a dangerous location. The project was set aside and forgotten.

Nearly 40 years after his visit to Brazil, Fuller would return to the Karaja tribe. Out of this experience came …

Oh, The Places You’Ll Go! Rhetorical Criticism, Samantha Schaffer

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! was written in 1990 by Theodore Seuss Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, and has continued to be one of Seuss’s most revered books of all time. While many people receive this book at moments of transition, such as college graduation, I primarily approach the book as an opportunity for parents to use it as a communicative tool to introduce young readers to complex emotions as well as symbolically send them off on their journey. In this paper, I argue that Oh, the Places You’ll Go! creates an approachable way for mental health messages to …

Immortal Celebrities: Tourism In Hollywood Cemeteries, Marta Soligo

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

This research is a critical study of tourism at four cemeteries in the Los Angeles area between 2013 and 2019. We examined these venues through the lens of celebrity tourism, since they are known as “Hollywood memorial parks,” hosting the graves of some of the most famous stars in the world. Through a qualitative study, we aimed to understand how the relationship between these venues and the entertainment industry works as a “pull factor” for tourists. Firstly, we identified the motivations behind the increasing number of tourists who add Los Angeles cemeteries to their must-see list. Although scholars often define …

“Back In The Saddle: Fallout: New Vegas And Real-World Tourism In Goodsprings, Nevada”, David Schwartz

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

Fallout: New Vegas, a video role-playing game released in 2012, is set in Southern Nevada in the aftermath of a nuclear war. The action begins in Goodsprings, which is in effect the game’s tutorial space, as the player learns how to move, fight, and interact with others, as well as being exposed to the game’s world and the factions that inhabit it. The game’s Goodsprings was modeled on the real-life town of Goodsprings, with several locations directly modeled on real-life buildings. The Prospector Saloon’s real-world analogue, the Pioneer Saloon, has become a tourist site for the game’s devotees. This …

Choose Your Own Adventure: A Comparative Analysis Of Storytelling Elements In Selected Immersive Experience Attractions, John E. Balido

Experience Industry Management

Stories are powerful tools used to both connect and communicate through a multitude of mediums. Movies, marketing campaigns, and experience design in theme parks are modern examples of storytelling, using various practices to bring the narrative to life. The purpose of this study was to analyze the manipulation of storytelling elements to create and build an immersive adventure experience in selected theme park attractions. A comparative analysis was conducted on theIndiana Jones Adventure and the Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance rides at Disneyland using an instrument that analyzed both experience design and storytelling practices. Findings concluded that the practices …

These Are My People: An Ethnography Of Quiltcon, Kristin Barrus

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis presents the first ethnography of QuiltCon, the annual fan and artist convention for quiltmakers who identify with and participate in a social phenomenon called the Modern Quilt Movement (MQM) within the 21st century quilt world. QuiltCon (QC) is one product of this movement. This study considers the following questions: What kinds of people attend QC, and what types of experiences and encounters do they expect at the convention? What needs are met at QC for this subset of quiltmakers who attend and for the greater community of Modern quiltmakers? What role does QC play in cementing the identity …

The Crow: Gothic Vigilantism And 1990'S Alternative Music, Kelly Stith

Far West Popular Culture Association Annual Conference

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Lori D. Ginzberg. Women And The Work Of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, And Class In The Nineteenth-Century United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990., Merritt A. Morgan

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Lori D. Ginzberg's 1990 work, Women and the Work of Benevolence: Morality, Politics, and Class in the Nineteenth-Century United States, focuses on the ideas and socially benevolent practices of Protestant women of the prosperous middle and upper-middle-class during the 1820s to the 1880s in the northeast region of the United States. The author analyzes how contemporaries affirmed these values in women's benevolent work, which also promoted their status and brought about significant social changes in American culture.

Sowing The Seeds Of Texas Nationalism, Frances Watson

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

The period of Texas independence (1836-1845) provided rich ground for a strong sense of Texan nationalism to grow, with the seeds sown much earlier. To this day, Texans still exhibit characteristics common with nationalism, due to a long history of coping with life on the frontier, the Scotch-Irish heritage of fighting in defense of individual rights, winning an armed struggle for independence from Mexico, and dominant Southern traditions of Protestant evangelical religion and military pride.

Dancing Through Time: A Biographical Look On The Evolution Of Tap Dance, Jaimie Cranford

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A uniquely American art form, tap dance has often been misrepresented and under-appreciated when positioned alongside other dance forms. This is largely due to the form’s racialized history, which builds upon contributions from African-American culture. Unlike other dance forms, which stem from white European traditions, tap dance evolved out of a necessity for cultural preservation as enslaved Africans adapted to life in America. As tap dance evolved, its association with slave culture led to it not being taken seriously; if anything, tap dancers were viewed simply as “entertainers” – certainly not as artists. Using a biographical lens, this work looks …

Art After Dark: Economies Of Performance, New York City 1978–1988, Meredith Mowder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Art After Dark: Economies of Performance, New York City 1978-1988 examines the interwoven social and economic histories of New York City and performance in the late 1970s and 1980s. The dissertation traces the growth and visibility of performance art, moving from the recession of the 1970s and early years of public funding for the arts, to the downtown nightclub scene of the 1980s, the history of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, and artistic experiments with television in the 1980s.Looking closely at the economic conditions under which performance occurred during the late 1970s and early 1980s, this dissertation …

Demanding Empathy Through Depictions Of Crisis: Activist Artists React To The Trump Administration's Family Separation Policies, Maisea Bailey

CLAMANTIS: The MALS Journal

No abstract provided.

Girl In Action: Junior Bazaar, 1945-1948, Rose D. Bishop

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides an overview of Junior Bazaar, a short-lived magazine for teenage girls published by Hearst between 1945-1948. Under the supervision of art director Lillian Bassman the magazine featured a variety of aesthetic devices — such as photomontage, asymmetrical layouts, the selective use of color, and playful placement of graphic forms — in efforts to distinguish itself from other publications on the market and construct a visual space specific to its teenage readers. Bassman’s unconventional stewardship of Junior Bazaar made room for an up-and-coming set of photographers, including Richard Avedon, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Louis Faurer, and other …

Us, Abundantly: From Africa To The Americas, Karisma Jay

Theses and Dissertations

"Us, AbunDantly," a Live theatrical dance performance and film, delves into the African Diaspora and its influences. An artistic and academic project built upon the amplification of Black excellence and Black pride, this paper contextualizes a work within the oral histories and contemporary dance studies of a powerfully ancestral community.

The Oldest Post-Truth? The Rise Of Antisemitism In The United States And Beyond, Gerald Steinacher

Department of History: Faculty Publications

Antisemitism, the negative stereotyping and hatred of Jews, has overshadowed Western history for 2000 years. In the 20th century, antisemitism led to the Shoah, the systematic state-sponsored murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany and its allies. In recent decades, antisemitism diminished significantly in the Western world, and there was hope that this plague would soon be consigned to the past. On the contrary, the past few years have witnessed a drastic increase of antisemitism in Western societies, often paired with far-right activism, racism, and xenophobia. In 2017 in Charlottesville, there were hundreds of marchers giving Nazi salutes, waving …

Out Of Time: Temporal Performativity And Resistance In Popular American Film, Television, And Theater, Meghan Johnston Aelabouni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that religious world-making in popular culture can reveal and resist hegemonic times. Taking as my primary case study the United States in the 2010s, particularly the shift from the Obama to the Trump era, I analyze cultural constructions of time—as sacred history, destiny, and “the times”—that reflect and shape national identity and belonging in the American imagined community. In this context, such temporal constructions have privileged whiteness and heteronormative masculinity, positioning those who embody or approximate this norm as “of the times,” while also displacing BIPOC, women, and queer people as “out of time.” I posit time …