Ray Broadus Browne

Marshall William Fishwick

Icons of Popular Culture

Gary Hoppenstand

Stephen King’s popularity lies in his ability to reinterpret the standard Gothic tale in new and exciting ways. Through his eyes, the conventional becomes unconventional and wonderful. King thus creates his own Gothic world and then interprets it for us. This book analyzes King’s interpretations and his mastery of popular literature. The essays discuss adolescent revolt, the artist as survivor, the vampire in popular literature, and much more.

Landscape of Nightmares

The Gothic World of Stephen King

The rituals of religion these days as practiced in the United States on television, have become big theatre, a big show. Televangelism is big business, amounting to billions of dollars each year. Televangelists discussed are Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Terry Cole-Whittaker, Marilyn Hickey, Danuto Rylko Soderman, and Beverly LaHaye.

Religion in the Electronic Age

The God Pumpers

This collection of essays examines various rituals and ceremonies in American popular culture, including architecture, religion, television viewing, humor, eating, and dancing.

Rituals and Ceremonies in Popular Culture

This volume examines the concept of taboos and tabooism and a dozen powerful ones in our society and suggests the control they exert on our everyday lives.

Taboos and Tabooism in Culture

Forbidden Fruits

Popular Beliefs and Practices from Alabama

The essays in this book trace many of the multitudinous forces at work on the Constitution and in the popular culture and show how the forces control and benefit each other. The subject is of profound importance and, beginning with these essays, needs to be studied at great length for the benefit of us all.

Popular Culture and the U.S. Constitution

Laws of Our Fathers

Alabamians have always been a singing people. The settlers who moved into the various sections of the state brought with them songs which reflected their national origins and geographical backgrounds, and as they spread into the hills and over the lowlands they created new songs out of the conditions under which they lived. Also, they absorbed songs from outside sources whenever these pieces could be adapted to their sentiments and ways of life. Thus, by a process of memory, composition and recreation they developed a rich body of folk songs. The following collection a part of the effort to discover and preserve these songs.

A Study in Origins and Media of Dissemination

The Alabama Folk Lyric

Ronald J. Ambrosetti

Popular Culture and Curricula

Marshall W. Fishwick

These essays, written by experts in their fields, demonstrate how necessary it is in the study of the humanities and social sciences to realize the interdependency of the fields and how rich the resulting study can be.

Popular Culture and Other Fields

Symbiosis

Michael T. Marsden

Heroes of Popular Culture

Garyn G. Roberts

This second collection of defective detective stories features some of the best of the period, including Russell Gray’s gimpy hero Ben Bryn, Edith and Ejler Jacobson’s hemophiliac gum-shoe Nat Perry, John Kobler’s glaucomatous troubleshooter Peter Quest, and Leon Byrne’s deaf detective Dan Holden.

More Tales of the Defective Detective in the Pulps

The world of the defective detective was a strange one. Continuing the motif of the mythological hero, this unique detective type emerged in the 1930s in a very imperfect and threatened society. The stories reprinted in this volume reveal just how widely the genre ranged during the Depression.

The Defective Detective in the Pulps

From Hank Williams to hip hop, Aunt Jemima to the Energizer Bunny, scrap-booking to NASCAR racing, this volume—edited by a pioneer in the field-invites readers to reflect on a sampling of modern myths, icons, archetypes, and rituals. Ray B. Browne has mined both scholarly and mainstream media to bring together penetrating essays on fads and fashions, sports fandom, the shaping of body image, the marketing of food, vacationing and sightseeing, toys and games, genre fiction, post-9/11 entertainment, and much more.

A Reader

Profiles of Popular Culture

Mystery fiction, although essentially the same in all its national varieties, nevertheless comes in several types and several wrappings. The present study of American, Australian, and Canadian detective fiction concerns literature which speaks in the ways of heroes and humanities about the human condition. All authors studied here, to one degree or another, demonstrate their concern with human society, some more strongly than others, but all with their eyes on the human situation and human existence. At times these studies lean toward the tragic in their outlook and development. In all instances they center on the humanistic.

Detective Fiction and Culture

Heroes and Humanities

Arthur G. Neal

Arthur B. Neal

The essays in this collection present communities beset by unexpected social and physical events. Some outline immediate responses that soon pass and some that will not go away. Who would have foreseen that Elvis would be a phenomenon apparently as lasting as the faces on Mount Rushmore? Cultural history will not allow us to forget the H. G. Wells account of the Martian attack, nor can we ever forget the continued terror of the Chernobyl explosion. Ordinary Reactions to Extraordinary Events catalogues on the Geiger counter of human emotions societal reactions to events both earthshaking and culture-disturbing.

Ordinary Reactions to Extraordinary Events

Pat Browne

William Labov

"To understand the history and spirit of America, one must know its wars, its laws, and its presidents. To really understand it, however, one must also know its cheeseburgers, its love songs, and its lawn ornaments. The long-awaited Guide to the United States Popular Culture provides a single-volume guide to the landscape of everyday life in the United States. Scholars, students, and researchers will find in it a valuable tool with which to fill in the gaps left by traditional history. All American readers will find in it, one entry at a time, the story of their lives."--Robert Thompson, President, Popular Culture Association. "At long last popular culture may indeed be given its due within the humanities with the publication of The Guide to United States Popular Culture. With its nearly 1600 entries, it promises to be the most comprehensive single-volume source of information about popular culture. The range of subjects and diversity of opinions represented will make this an almost indispensable resource for humanities and popular culture scholars and enthusiasts alike."--Timothy E. Scheurer, President, American Culture Association "The popular culture of the United States is as free-wheeling and complex as the society it animates. To understand it, one needs assistance. Now that explanatory road map is provided in this Guide which charts the movements and people involved and provides a light at the end of the rainbow of dreams and expectations."--Marshall W. Fishwick, Past President, Popular Culture Association Features of The Guide to United States Popular Culture: 1,010 pages 1,600 entries 500 contributors Alphabetic entries Entries range from general topics (golf, film) to specific individuals, items, and events Articles are supplemented by bibliographies and cross references Comprehensive index

The Guide to United States Popular Culture

Glenn J. Browne

Deborah Gillan Straub

Kevin O. Browne

Brief profiles of more than 100 contemporary men and women from all walks of life whose activities reflect heroic traits.

Contemporary Heroes and Heroines

This book demonstrates the importance of the study of fetishes and fetishism in the study of popular culture. Some of the essays cover rather "conventional" manifestations in the world today; others demonstrate the fetishistic qualities of some unusual items. But all illustrate without any doubt that, like the icon, the ritual, and many other items in society, fetishes, fetishism and fetishists must be studied and understood before we can begin to understand the complexity of present-day society.

Ray Broadus Browne

Books

Your next favorite book is out there