New Books in Popular Culture

Punk has long been viewed as a subculture of anger, disruption, and alternative political and lifestyle choices. In The Politics of Punk: Protest and Revolt from the Streets (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016) David Ensminger examines the various ways in which punk has created connections to various activist communities. Using interviews with musicians and subculture participants, oral histories, observations, and popular media reports, Ensminger follows the money trail, exploring where punk as a subculture has influenced communities and challenged dominant narratives. Ensminger positions punk’s beginnings in the larger political and social culture, connecting punk activism to the communities of which it was a part. He examines how punks were grassroots activists in ways that are often overlooked in traditional histories of the movement. Ensminger’s book appeals to scholars and readers interested in punk culture, popular music, activisms, and popular culture as Ensminger’s engaging work adds to the growing history of punk. Rebekah Buchanan is an Assistant Professor of English at Western Illinois University. Her work examines the role of narrative–both analog and digital–in people’s lives. She is interested in how personal narratives produced in alternative spaces create sites that challenge traditionally accepted public narratives. She researches zines, zine writers and the influence of music subcultures and fandom on writers and narratives. You can find more about her on her website, follow her on Twitter @rj_buchanan or email her at rj-buchanan@wiu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Teenagers get a lot of bad press. Whether it’s how they look, how they dress, the things they say, the way they say it – it sometimes seems as if they can’t get anything right. And when it comes to language, it’s clear that teenagers are special. But though anecdotal evidence abounds, just how special, and in what ways, has rarely been the subject of detailed empirical research. Sali Tagliamonte’s book Teen Talk: The Language of Adolescents (Cambridge University Press, 2016) is the first step towards filling that gap. Using a variety of data sources and approaches, the book zooms in on some of the “funky features” that set teen language apart. In this interview, we discuss several of the words and structures featured in the book: “just”, “stuff”, “weird”, “awesome”, and the much-maligned “like.” We also discuss the special ecological niche that teen language has in the process of language change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Since 2007, American photographer Jade Doskow has been documenting the remains of World’s Fair sites, once iconic global attractions that have often been repurposed for less noble aspirations or neglected and fallen into decay. Lost Utopias (Black Dog Publishing, 2016) brings together the substantial body of work that Doskow has completed over the past decade, including iconic monuments such as the Seattle Space Needle, the Eiffel Tower, Brussels Palais des Expositions and New York’s Unisphere. Doskow’s large-scale colorphotographs poignantly illustrate the utopian architecture and art that has surrounded the Worlds Fairs, across both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Presented in a large-scale hardback book, Doskow’s work carries a unique sense of both grandeur and dreaminess, whilst also reflecting upon the often temporary purposes that these structures once held. Jade Doskow is an award-winning photographer based in Peekskill, New York. She holds a BA in Philosophy of Art and Music from New York University and an MFA in Photography & Video from the School of Visual Arts. She is currently on the photography faculty of the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography, and was named by ‘American Photo’ as ‘One to Watch’ in 2013. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

While many fans collect all kinds of memorabilia related to their favorite movies, others actually seek out and collect the actual celluloid films. For their book, A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies (University Press of Mississippi, 2016) Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph interviewed many of these collectors and learned about the issues they faced, both in finding their own special treasures, as well as the legal issues suffered by some of them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

What do our myths say about us? Why do we choose to believe stories that have been disproven by science? In Myths of the Rune Stone: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America (University of Minnesota Press, 2015), David M. Krueger takes an in-depth look at a legend that held tremendous power in one corner of Minnesota, helping to define a community’s identity for decades. In 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer claimed to have discovered a large rock with writing carved into its surface in a field near Kensington, Minnesota. The writing was interpreted to tell a North American origin story, predating Christopher Columbus’ exploration, in which Viking missionaries reached what is now Minnesota in 1362 only to be massacred by Native Americans. The tales credibility and the inscription’s authenticity was quickly challenged and ultimately undermined by experts, but the myth took hold. Popular faith in the dubious artifact emerged as a local expression of American civil religion, which appealed to Scandinavian immigrants, Catholics, small town boosters and those looking to commemorate the white settlers who died in the Dakota War of 1862. This book is a case study of how myths are created, propagated, and adapted over time and reveals something unique about America’s preoccupation with divine right and its troubled way of coming to terms with the history of the continent’s first residents. The multiple narratives around the stone would be effective in a variety of classroom settings and you can find resources for using the book in the classroom on the book’s website https://mythsoftherunestone.com. In our conversation we discussed myth, small town life and Minnesotan civic identity, martyrdom, secularization, the Cold War, Vikings, Marion devotion, Native Americans, Christian identity in Minnesota, American civil religion, and the multiple venues for using the book in the classroom. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. His research and teaching interests include Theory and Methodology in the Study of Religion, Islamic Studies, Chinese Religions, Human Rights, and Media Studies. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

What do the musical compositions of Bach, Gershwin, and the Beatles all have in common? Besides being great pieces of music, according to Andrew Schulman, they promote healing in intensive care (ICU) settings. Schulman is a classical guitar player and performer and author of Waking the Spirit: A Musician’s Journey Healing Body, Mind, and Soul (Picador, 2016). Schulman did not receive training as a music therapist and only began working in ICUs after he had a near-death experience at one. Waking the Spirit offers a gripping account of his medical journey and his decision to give back to others. As a result of his collaboration with his former doctors, Schulman became what he terms, a “medical musician.” During the podcast, Schulman briefly describes his journey and reflects upon what he has learned about music from working in the ICU. He also talks about how his work in the ICU has made him a better concert performer. In our conversation, we explore how music heals, what forms of music seem most suited for healing, and the role of musicians and music therapists in ICUs. Andrew Schulman is the resident musician in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai Beth Israel hospital in New York City and Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He is the founder and artistic director of the Abaca String Band. He is also a solo guitarist and has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Improv Comedy Club, and the White House. He lives in New York City with his wife, Wendy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Before the war, before the novels, before the four marriages and the safaris, the plane crashes and the bullfighting fascination, Ernest Hemingway was simply a young boy growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. Author Robert K. Elder lives in Oak Park, and for the colorful and interesting Hidden Hemingway: Inside the Ernest Hemingway Archives of Oak Park (Kent State University Press, 2016), he and his co-authors Aaron Vetch and Mark Cirino dug into multiple locations of the Hemingway archives. The legendary author’s life was as big as his fiction, and Elder and the documents preserved in the writer’s hometown help tell his story. Garrison Keillor said of the book, “Ernest Hemingway was the genuine literary giant of my youth: we groundlings studied him closely, we imitated and then we parodied him, we admired the fine figure he cut and envied his celebrity, and now fifty years later, it’s a privilege to look through his closet and read his stuff and discover him as a mortal man.” From ancestral documents and photos to Hemingway’s early prose, love letters, yearbook pages and more, a thorough picture of the writer emerges. Elder and podcast host Gael Fashingbauer Cooper discuss the most enlightening, surprising and shocking archival discoveries, as well as how Hemingway’s most famous dig at his hometown was probably never said by him at all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Television had been transformed by the rise of the format. In The Format Age: Television’s Entertainment Revolution Jean Chalaby, Professor of International Communication at City University London, charts the beginnings of the format for TV shows, through the globalization of the trade in TV formats, to conclude with reflections on the future of local and global TV markets. The book uses an eclectic set of theoretical frames, including Global Value Chains, World Systems Theory and work of the Annales School, to chart the political economy of the TV format. Using a wide range of examples, detailed case studies of local markets and local production systems (including the UK), the book shows how the format is now crucial to the modern television industry encompassing everything from the game show to the long form drama. The book will be of interest to all media and communications scholars, as well as anyone keen to know why we have the sorts of television programmes we have on our screens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

John Jodzio, oft and rightly compared to George Saunders, is lauded by Chuck Klosterman as “the best best kind of modern fiction writer: a thematic traditionalist who feels totally new.” It’s no wonder this hilarious and profound Minneapolis writer has cultivated a cult following who flock to his reading events. His most recent collection Knock Out: Stories (Soft Skull Press, 2016) features a cast of complex, compelling, and strange characters (an alcoholic bed and breakfast owner, a recovering meth addict and a kidnapped tiger, an agoraphobic mother raising her baby completely indoors, a former soap opera star paralyzed in a human cannon ball stunt gone bad, and a son trying to keep the opium den family business afloat– just to name a few) who ultimately reveal their own raw humanity, as well as our shared emotional experience without the baggage of sentimentality. Jodzio walks a tightrope between comedic gold and hitting the sweet spot of crack-your-ribcage-open-and-shatter-your-heart-like-a-geode. These artfully crafted stories are difficult to put down, and Jodzio’s plotting and pacing are so spot on that it’s a deceptively quick read. It’s only on rereading that we see how hard each sentence is working to reveal the world anew to us as readers. Barbara Harroun is an Assistant Professor at Western Illinois University. Her work can be found at Fiction Southeast, Watershed Review, Rappahannock Review and Iron Horse Literary Review, among others. She can be found at barbaraharroun.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Stephen Lee Naish first became aware of Dennis Hopper watching David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, jumpstarting what would become a long examination of Hopper’s ambitions and creative output as an actor, filmmaker, photographer, sculptor, and painter. In his book, Create or Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper (Amsterdam University Press, 2016), Naish places Hopper’s work in its social and political context , showcasing the diverse career of a talented visual artist and pioneer in the American independent film movement.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture