Responds to an article in the same issue of this journal. Suggests that the author is unwilling to establish an entry point in the realm of culture because he privileges the moment of production over that of consumption. Suggests disregarding the demarcation lines separating cultural studies from critical political economy, and both from the…

Responds to articles in the same issue of this journal. Suggests that other commentators continue to misrepresent political economy. Suggests that the conversation on this issue should continue across as wide a civic and civil discourse as possible. (RS)

Explores the concept of genre evolution through the experimental, classic, refinement, and deconstructivist phases of American films. A series of detailed diagrams present a synthesis of influences and developments in the western, supercop, detective, gangster, futuristic science fiction, fantasy, outer space science fiction, horror, musical, and…

Shows, in "Cordel" literature (a popular manifestation found in northeastern Brazil) an expressive source for the analysis of popular culture in Brazil. Uses this literature to discuss images of reading. (PA)

Explores the significance of Robert Altman's film "Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson." States that this film examines the western as a national myth and as a commercial entertainment form. Discusses questions about the moral authority of the hero and the consequences for Native Americans of western…

Students use analyzing themes in song lyrics, rhetorical devices in essays and advertisements, and psychology in contemporary film, to improve their skills in critical thinking and writing. Popular culture is deduced to have an important place in English curricula.

People call on their cultural resources to find relief for their fears and reassurance about their hopes. Among those resources is the mysterious and hazardous tool called leadership. There are many traditions of leadership in world cultures, but the contemporary notions about leading and leaders are ever-changing, so that traditional…

This article offers a critical perspective on the default mode of freshman composition instruction, that is, its traditionally middle-class and white racial orientation. Although middle-classness and whiteness have been topics of critical interest among compositionists in recent years, perhaps the most effective challenge to this hegemony in…

When Delta blues are considered to be "folk music," the genre is inextricably tied to the neocolonial, sharecropping system of cotton production characteristic of the Mississippi Delta region between the Civil War and World War II. "Imperialist nostalgia," then, arises in accounts which pay primary and positive tribute to blues…

A teacher's observations on the marked contrast between the development and behavior of elementary school children in Tennessee's Cumberland plateau and their counterparts in New York City's Greenwich Village vividly demonstrate the regional basis that still accounts for a variety of cultural variations. And yet, place of upbringing is just one of…

The focal image of the film "The Black Hole" functions as a visual metaphor for the sacred, order, unity, and eternal time. The black hole is a symbol that unites the antinomic pairs of conscious/unconscious, water/fire, immersion/emersion, death/rebirth, and hell/heaven. The black hole is further associated with the quest for…

Rock music is ideological both implicitly (in its intrinsic valuing of change, and resistance to authority, for instance), and explicitly (in political records from activist artists such as John Lennon and U2). The texts of the rock genre offer rhetorical experiences. A dialogic conception may help scholars to account for and describe the…

In order to explore whether the medium employed to promote a given event also helps to shape the accompanying myth which is attached to any significant happening, it will be useful to compare the two rock concerts, 1969's Woodstock and 1985's Live Aid. One difference is the way in which the two concerts were organized, promoted, and executed;…

Ageism (unfair stereotyping of older adults), deeply embedded in the culture of 20th-century America, is reinforced by television and newspapers. The media depict old people as rigid, meddlesome, sexless, conservative, unhealthy, and forgetful. Most pernicious of all old age stereotypes is that of second childhood. Popular culture portrays…

Shows how adolescent femininity is constructed in 34 adolescent romance novels written from 1942-1982. Most feature the "good girl" characterized by filial obedience and adherence to male-dominated romantic conduct, although sixties and seventies novels showed strain in gender relations. Narrative versions of femininity are fictional…