Sociology Commons^™

Guest Editorial: Cruel Summer, Travis D. Boyce

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

2020 has been one of the most eventful and consequential years in the United States as well as around the world. Along with COVID-19, the sociopolitical climate that has allowed White supremacy and cruelty to thrive consequently resulted in a Cruel Summer. As we reflect on this Cruel Summer, popular culture can serve as a powerful lens to understand history as well as our contemporary world. We must remain vigilant and use our scholarship to push back against anti-Black racism and White supremacy. I look forward to your thoughts on this issue and hope you enjoy, Engaged Popular …

Editorial: Can Popular Culture Speak To Issues Of Equity In Educational Spaces?, Anna S. Cohenmiller, Kirk Peterson

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Editorial for Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, Volume 7, Issue 2 (Summer 2020), Engaged Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Awareness, Understanding and Social Justice.

Bodies In Motion: Challenging Imagery, Tradition, And Teaching [Dialogue: The The Interdisciplinary Journal Of Popular Culture And Pedagogy, Volume 7, Issue 1 (February 2020)], Anna S. Cohenmiller

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Bodies in Motion: Challenging Imagery, Tradition, and Teaching [Dialogue: The The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, Volume 7, Issue 1 (February 2020)]

Editorial

Challenging the Normative in Popular Culture and Pedagogy, Anna S. CohenMiller

Articles

The Tin Woodman, Captain Fyter, and Chopfyt: L. Frank Baum’s Portrayal of Body image and Prostheses in the Wake of World War I, Marie Gethins

Relandscaping the Rhetorical Tradition through Hip Hop, Robert Tinajero

The Batman Comes to Class: Popular Culture as a Tool for Addressing Reflexive Pain, Kyle Hammonds and Karen Anderson-Lain

Pedagogy, Ideology, & Composition: Is There a Better Way …

Renegade Or Paragon?: Categorizing Narrative Choice In Video Game Storylines, Graham Oliver

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Choices made during video game gameplay set the stories told in that media apart from other media. Narrative-affecting choices have existed since the earliest games, from character creation in role-playing games to performance-based narrative changes in Metroid to morality-based choices in Ogre Battle. In the contemporary gaming landscape, some games derive a significant portion of their gameplay from character decisions: exploration, dialogue options, quick-time event reactions, etc. In this article, I give a history and breakdown of how choices have existed and evolved in gaming narratives since their inception. I then propose three categories for significant narrative choices: aesthetic, …

Finding The Sacred In The Profane: The Mardi Gras In Basile, Louisiana, Luc Guglielmi

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In Basile, a small community in Southwest Louisiana, there would not be any Mardi Gras without Ash Wednesday and vice-versa. Most of the people in Basile speak of Ash Wednesday when defining the Mardi Gras as there is a reciprocal spiritual relationship between Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday. The people from Basile, therefore, in giving equal spiritual value to these two feasts, assign a liturgical value to Mardi Gras because they need, and will admit this freely, to have a good Mardi Gras in order to enter into the sacred season of Lent.

Mardi Gras performs a function that is …

First-Person Adolescent Storytellers And Virginia Tufte’S Artful Sentences: Syntax As Style, Kristin Leonard

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Virginia Tuft illustrates how grammar, word choice, and syntax strategies help to generate the perfect juxtaposition of words and punctuation that will make each sentence pop (Clark). Tufte’s handbook includes examples from a variety of texts; for example, John Keats, Andy Warhol, Ernest Hemingway, Julia Child’s The Joy of Cooking, and more. However, there is a noticeable lack of adolescent narrators in Tufte’s smorgasbord of literature examples. This lack is significant, due to the popularity of firstperson narrators in adolescent literature. Therefore, in order to analyze whether Tufte’s syntax strategies can …

A Gaze Of Cruelty, Deferred: Actualizing The Female Gaze In Cate Shortland’S Berlin Syndrome (2017), Natasha Chuk

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Australian director Cate Shortland’s dramatic thriller Berlin Syndrome (2017) follows the conventions of the genre involving a psychologically unstable male perpetrator and his female victim, thus could hinge on patriarchal control. Instead, based on a close reading of feminist film scholar Laura Mulvey’s theoretical definition of the former, Shortland’s cinematic apparatus can be read as an inverse of the male gaze, a type of systematic ‘female gaze’. This observation both warrants clarification of the term and concept behind the female gaze and suggests a pressing need to re-evaluate the language of cinema and its habitually damaging depictions of women. In …

Pedagogy, Ideology, & Composition: Is There A Better Way To Teach?, Erin Guydish Buchholz

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

While academia tends to focus on differentiating various groups of students, prioritizing similar learning practices can have surprising and potentially transforming outcomes. In classrooms that are often filled with students who do not quite comprehend the significance of critical thinking processes or practices, the role they will play as global citizens, or why studying abstract topics is necessary, interchanging effective pedagogy from one classroom or student type to another may result in more engaged and productive learning. Additionally, students may mature and create their personas more clearly when classes interject ‘basic’ classroom practices such as modeling respect while discussing politics …

The Batman Comes To Class: Popular Culture As A Tool For Addressing Reflexive Pain, Kyle A. Hammonds, Karen Anderson-Lain

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In this essay, a case study approach is used to examine ways in which comics and graphic narratives can be used to provide a context within which undergraduate students may theorize about culture. The authors employed Batman: Year One as an organizing narrative for students to theorize about culture and communication. Specifically, students were challenged to (1) understand applications of communication theory in the context of graphic narrative, (2) use graphic narrative as a space for theorizing about communication and culture outside of comics, (3) utilize narrative theory to extrapolate meaning from complex, multi-modal forms of communication. While this …

The Tin Woodman, Captain Fyter, And Chopfyt: L. Frank Baum’S Portrayal Of Body Image And Prostheses In The Wake Of World War I, Marie Gethins

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Nineteenth and early twentieth-century children’s literature frequently depicts characters with disabilities as flat stereotypes — villains or saintly invalids. L. Frank Baum’s The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918) provides a sharp contrast to these typical portrayals, as well as contemporary “socio-cultural” beliefs on physical normalcy and sense of self. Written as the U.S. entered World War I and details of trench warfare reached the home-front, it presents an interesting exploration of society’s response to physical disability and prostheses. In addition, it highlights the psychological devastation associated with body changes.

During Baum’s formative years, disabled Civil War veterans returned to New …

Zombie Literature: Analyzing The Fear Of The Unknown Through Popular Culture, T. Hnter Strickland

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This paper will focus on how the rise in popularity of zombie literature in the 21st century is reflective of a western cultural need to address the fear of the unknown through popular culture. Through the flesh-eating zombie, we enter a parallel world where everything familiar in our communities becomes evil. The genre reflects the fear in Western society of the neighbor who has turned against you, survival in the midst of government collapse, and the monster within. Zombie fantasy literature allows society a venue to deconstruct what is known while dealing with these fears and the unbridled hate of …

Consider The Dementor: Discipline, Punishment, And Magical Citizenship In Harry Potter, Tracy Bealer

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

In his 2004 essay “Consider the Lobster”, David Foster Wallace investigated the ethics of boiling alive an aesthetically unappealing, yet sentient and perceiving, creature to augment the pleasure of a human consumer. In the Potterverse, dementors are described by our human heroes as “terrible things” with “rotting” bodies, “unseen” mouths, and characterized as “among the foulest creatures that walk this earth” . Their occupation as guards of Azkaban Prison does little to improve their reputation among wizard-kind. However, how much of the dementors’ evil is ontological? Is it possible that these beings have been actively constructed as villains by wizarding …

“No Te Voy A Dejar Nunca”: Culture And Second Language Acquisition For Survival In Fear The Walking Dead, Sharon M. Nuruddin

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Popular culture reinforces and shapes the beliefs and values of the individual, the community, and the masses. It can also transmit hidden messages about aspects of human behavior that are reiterated in scholarly research. In the field of education, particularly in world language teacher education, film and television can be used as an effective tool for examining how we acquire a second language. Using a symbolic convergence theory perspective (SCT) (Bormann, 1972), I employ Sellnow’s (2014) three-step process for the rhetorical analyses of mediated popular culture texts to reveal “covert messages” (p. 9) within the popular American Movie Channel (AMC) …

Breaking The Rules: Playing Criminally In Video Games, James Tregonning

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Video games have long courted controversy for their frequent valorisation of criminality. However, in this article, I consider heroic criminals in video games from a different perspective. I focus on two games – Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please (2013) and Osmotic Studio’s Orwell (2016) – that position the player as a low-level government operative in a fictional authoritarian regime. Players are expected to process information for their governments, although they are also given opportunities to undermine or subvert the regime. Thus, the trope of heroic criminal is used to comment on the function and role of the state. It becomes …

Nature Vs. Nurture In Albuquerque: What Breaking Bad And Better Call Saul Teach Us About How We Talk About Criminals, Max Romanowski

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul focus on the criminal transformation of their two main characters, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). While quite similar on the surface, Walter and Jimmy’s narratives represent two different criminal transitions, evoking the classic nature vs nurture conversation. Both of these shows bring the conversation to the idea of inevitability. The nature vs. nurture argument is a popular one because it acts as a teaching tool for how we think and talk about criminal behavior. At first, it follows that since criminality was in Walter White’s nature the whole time, his …

Studying Silence In Popular Culture, Kathy Merlock Jackson, Terry Lindvall

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This article explains the impetus for and execution of a team-taught, interdisciplinary class in silence using popular culture materials and practices, such as silent film, music, meditation, and mime. The course identifies individuals as possessing characteristics of introversion and extraversion and explores the role of silence in the modern world, incorporating the following: (1) Foundations for the Study of Silence, (2) The History of Silence, (3) The Role of Silence in Spirituality, Creativity and Reflection, (4) Silence in Communication Study, (5) Silent Film and Silence in Film, (6) The Role of Silence in a Highly Technological, Mediated World, and (7) …

Human Sacrifice And Propaganda In Popular Media: More Than Morbid Curiosity, Jason Tatlock

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Representations of human sacrifice, whether based upon real or fictitious events, powerfully demonstrate societal norms and fascinations related to the acceptability of slaying humans for religious or national interests, particularly given the divisive and bloody nature of the topic. Readers of eye-witness accounts, newspaper reports, and historical narratives, and viewers of cinematic productions, war posters, and political cartoons come face to face with the beliefs and agendas of the creators of popular media. Such sources represent the slaying of victims in sacred rituals, as individuals attempt to demarcate societal boundaries along the etic/ emic spectrum, be they commentaries on their …

Social Justice From The Twilight Zone: Rod Serling As Human Rights Activist, Hugh A. D. Spencer

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Rod Serling achieved critical acclaim in the First Golden Age of Television writing realist teleplays that express a strong moral sense and social consciousness. With the decline of anthology drama at the close of the 1950s, Serling created The Twilight Zone, which would become a forum for telling relevant stories while circumventing commercial and bureaucratic interference. As a means of exploring Serling’s use of drama as a tool for social justice, this paper compares themes from The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery with charter and constitutional statements of human rights. The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights is …

Four Decades, Three Songs, Too Much Violence: Using Popular Culture Media Analysis To Prepare Preservice Teachers For Dealing With School Violence, Edward Janak, Lisa Pescara-Kovach

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Since teacher education has morphed from normal schools into colleges of education, the goals of preparing teachers have expanded. While it is essential to prepare teachers to utilize scientifically proven methods as well as to read and use research in the field, there are ever-expanding other goals that must be met as well. For one example, with the increase of school violence taking place in the United States, it is imperative to include preparation for preservice teachers on how to prevent bullying and how to handle traumatic events, such as school shootings, with their future students. However, broaching such a …

“If You Want To Be The Man, You’Ve Got To Beat The Man”: Masculinity And The Rise Of Professional Wrestling In The 1990s, Marc A. Ouellette

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This paper traces the relationship between the shifting representations of masculinity in professional wrestling programs of the 1990s and the contemporaneous shifts in conceptions of masculinity, examining the ways each of these shifts impacted the other. Most important among these was a growing sense that the biggest enemy in wrestling and in day-to-day life is one’s boss. Moreover, the corporate corruption theme continues to underscore the WWE's on-screen and off-screen coverage, well into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Thus, the paper provides a template for considering a widely consumed popular cultural form in ways that challenge the determinism …

The Diyinii Of Naachid: Diné Rhetoric As Ritual, Edward L. Karshner

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Rhetoric is far more than a theory of communication or the antiquated ancestor of freshman composition courses. As a system, rhetoric is the process that directs, on the one hand, individual experiences with the world and structures, and on the other, the stories cultures tell about themselves. These foundational narratives (myths) reveal a culture’s metaphysical understanding of the nature of reality, the psychological understanding of human nature, and the epistemological notion of what can be known. Using the Diné Bahané, this paper will explore Diné rhetoric as naachid, an inclusive, outward-directed communication model of problem solving which functions …

From The Vertical To The Horizontal: Introducing Mikhail Epstein’S Transculture To Perplexed Educators, Sheldon S. Kohn

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

A shift in focus from supporting or opposing vertical, grand narratives to the horizontal, the ordinary and the everyday, can lead educators to transformative developments. Educators find themselves in a false dichotomy of being restricted to supporting or opposing competing vertical utopian visions of education. Mikhail Epstein’s ideas about transculture can help perplexed educators make a shift from the vertical to the horizontal, focusing their praxis and pedagogy on the ordinary and the everyday, including objects and artifacts of popular culture. In a radical move, Epstein argues that commodification represents resistance to totalitarian controls and impulses; he urges educators to …

Lady Gaga Meets Ritzer: Using Music To Teach Sociological Theory, Kenneth Culton, José A. Muñoz

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

This paper presents methods for instructors to deal with student anxiety over theory courses. The method is an interactive class exercise that provides instructors with direction as to using popular music. The paper accomplishes this through the use of several cases for including music in order to spark discussion and suggestions for helping students to interpret the theory presented. Additionally, suggestions for incorporating writing assignments with the exercise are provided here. A table linking music to a theorist is also provided.

“Can You Imagine, A Real, Live Indian Right Here In Walnut Grove?”: American Indians In Television Adaptations Of Little House On The Prairie, Amy S. Fatzinger

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House novels have been adapted into two major television series: Michael Landon’s well-known series, which aired from 1974-1983, and a more recent Disney adaptation, which aired as a miniseries in 2005. The premier movie, which preceded Landon’s series, and the Disney miniseries both focus on the events in Wilder’s 1935 novel, Little House on the Prairie, which covered the period from 1869-1871 during which the Ingalls family lived among the Osage in Kansas Indian Territory. Wilder’s portrayal of the Osage in her novel is controversial, but she does also include some literary devices that allow …

Girls, Guns, And Zombies: Five Dimensions Of Teaching And Learning In The Walking Dead, Anthony Neely

Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy

Rooted in sociocultural theory, this article utilizes a conceptual framework derived from Alexander, Schallert, and Reynolds’ four topographical dimensions of learning: who of learning, what of learning, where of learning, and when of learning. Situated learning (Lave and Wenger) is presented as a fifth dimension to address how learning occurs in communities of practice absent of formal schooling. Content analysis (Elo and Kyngass) is used to analyze a teaching and learning event from an episode of The Walking Dead based on the five topographical dimensions of learning listed above. Findings provide insights for pedagogical application for …

'More Is Caught Than Taught:' Parental Cultural And Racial Socialization Beliefs And Practices In The Midwest United States, Sarah Barker Ladd

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Parents are critical socialization agents for their children, especially in middle childhood. It is through parent-child interactions that beliefs, values, and attitudes can be particularly influential for a child’s identity and social development. In particular, understanding how parents socialize their children has important implications for their own child’s racial identity development and critical consciousness – and later civic engagement and social behaviors. The current study sought to investigate ethnic-racial socialization (ERS) and critical consciousness of parents with children in middle childhood who live in the Midwestern United States. Based on interviews and quantitative survey data from 28 parents, results revealed …

Waking Up Before We Die: Aging And Spirituality, Marcelline Hutton

Zea E-Books Collection

In retirement, I have more time for prayer and reflection, to rest in the Lord, and hence to have my spirit renewed. We choose how we interpret our situations. Positive, spiritual aging ideas enhance our sense of well-being. Of course, the loss of loved ones decreases our sense of self-worth at times, but the Spirit can renew us. As Genesis reminds us, God was still working in the lives of Sarah and Abraham in old age, and they can serve as models for us. Indeed, Sarah laughed at the angels and shows us how humor exists even as we age. …

How To Communicate Your Estate Plan To Family When Dividing Assets Unequally, Anastasia Meyer

Cornhusker Economics

Provides a guide on how to effectively approach estate planning conversations with family members.

Effectively communicating an estate plan with unequal division of assets can be challenging, but approaching it with honesty, clarity, and empathy can help prevent misunderstandings and family disputes. Open, respectful dialogue—paired with thoughtful explanations and transparent documentation—ensures that your family understands your intentions and feels valued, even when tough decisions are involved.

Ultimately, your goal isn’t just to pass down financial assets, but also to preserve family harmony and, where applicable, secure the future of a viable business. By fostering open communication, you can create a …

Research Report: Economy And Trade Policy, Heather Akin, Cheryl A. Burkhart-Kriesel, Mary Emery, Katelyn Larson, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy, Timothy Meyers, Rebecca J. Vogt

Nebraska Rural Poll

Most rural Nebraskans are somewhat or very concerned about their household’s cost of living, their household income, and their household’s financial situation. This was particularly true for certain groups, including persons with lower household incomes, younger persons, and persons with construction, installation, or maintenance occupations.

When asked about the impacts of international trade, most rural Nebraskans think it is good for Nebraska’s economy. Residents of the Panhandle are the regional group least likely to think trade is good for the state’s economy.

Many rural Nebraskans think international trade is good for creating jobs in Nebraska, for their own standard of …

Battery Recycling In Nebraska, Kathryn Singh, Keegan Dunn, Emily Klinger

Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319): Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community projects, fall 2024

A poster titled Battery Recycling in Nebraska for clients Douglas County Environmental Services and Recycling Council.