New Books in Popular Culture

Today’s episode of POSTSCRIPT explores and examines director Greta Gerwig’s film, Barbie. This Warner Brothers’ movie has been in theaters for under a month but has crossed the $1 billion dollar mark during that time, breaking all kinds of box office records and making Gerwig the first solo female director to enter this rarified realm. Barbie is now Warner Brothers’ most successful film, surpassing Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, which had held that position at Warner Brothers. Barbie has hit a kind of cultural and cinematic sweet spot—with a marketing campaign around the movie establishing pink as the new black, bringing in Barbie-connected products across almost all consumer platforms, from Barbie-themed furniture to holiday home rentals, from lunchboxes and tee-shirts to new Mattel Barbies reflecting characters in the film. Barbie has also received positive reviews in the United States and globally, with audience members attending the film in pink clothing and accessories, often accompanied by friends and family members. Thus, Barbie is more than a summer tent-pole release, though it certainly has fulfilled that particular role. Barbie is more of an event—driving theater attendance, conversations, and in-person community experiences.In this episode, I am joined by four scholars and experts to discuss “all things Barbie” as we examine the narrative of the film itself, the questions of gender and feminism, patriarchy, and sexuality. We also dive into the marketing campaign, the tensions between capitalism, neoliberalism, postfeminism, and an original intellectual property based on a consumer product. Dr. Linda Beail (Point Loma Nazarene University), Dr. Shuchi Kapila (Grinnell College), Dr. Danielle Hanley (Clark University), and Dr. Susan Liebell (St. Joseph University and co-host of the New Books in Political Science podcast) take up all these dimensions of this brightly colored film as we explore our thinking about this movie event that has landed in the post-Covid landscape of 2023.We all found the experience of seeing Barbie, in a movie theater, to be one filled with joy and fun, for ourselves, and among those in the theater with us. Join in our conversation about Barbie, since this is both a delightful cinematic experience and a film with something to say to its audience and the world around us.Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-host of the New Books in Political Science channel at the New Books Network. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012). She can be reached @gorenlj.bsky.social Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The relationship between madness and video games has been notoriously tense. In an abundance of titles, stereotypes and stigmatisations can be found—not only regarding the mentally ill, but also psychiatry as a discipline. Sequences of electroshock therapy come to mind, mutated patients, and homicidal maniacs. But where do we go from here? And what lies beyond the criticism of how mental illnesses are portrayed in video games?In Pixelated Madness: The Construction of Mental Illnesses and Psychiatric Institutions in Video Games (Hülsbusch, 2023), game studies scholar Stefan Heinrich Simond focuses on a small selection of contemporary video games to present detailed qualitative analyses and ultimately develop a typology of madness in video games that can serve as an instructive basis for further study. The primary goal is thereby not to criticise or evaluate but to describe, understand, and disambiguate. From common tropes such as the horror asylum and the animalised inmate to the sanity meter and subversive means of subjectification, a broad angle on madness in video games is presented.Aside from the concrete analyses, this dissertation also presents a constructivist understanding of madness. Instead of comparing video game characters to diagnostic manuals or therapeutic means to their actual application, video games are taken for what they are: creative expressions that aim to inspire and entertain. Madness in video games is then not considered a mirror to mental illnesses in real life, but a construction in its own right. Based on the presented observations, a new angle on the status of madness in the media might be well warranted.Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science, editor of “Game Studies Watchlist”, a weekly messenger newsletter about Game Culture and curator of @gamestudies at tiktok. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The United States is currently home to six generations of people: -the Silents, born 1925-1945 -Baby Boomers, born 1946-1964 -Gen X, born 1965-1979 -Millennials, born 1980-1994 -Gen Z, born 1995-2012 -and the still-to-be-named cohorts born after 2012. They have had vastly different life experiences and thus, one assumes, they must have vastly diverging beliefs and behaviors. But what are those differences, what causes them, and how deep do they actually run?Professor of psychology and "reigning expert on generational change" (Lisa Wade, PhD, author of American Hookup), Jean Twenge does a deep dive into a treasure trove of long-running, government-funded surveys and databases to answer these questions. Are we truly defined by major historical events, such as the Great Depression for the Silents and September 11 for Millennials? Or, as Twenge argues, is it the rapid evolution of technology that differentiates the generations?With her clear-eyed and insightful voice, Twenge explores what the Silents and Boomers want out of the rest of their lives; how Gen X-ers are facing middle age; the ideals of Millennials as parents and in the workplace; and how Gen Z has been changed by COVID, among other fascinating topics.Surprising, engaging, and informative, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future (Atria, 2023) will forever change the way you view your parents, peers, coworkers, and children, no matter which generation you call your own. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

A rich and indulgent history, English Food: A Social History of England Told Through the Food on Its Tables (William Collins, 2022) by Dr. Diane Purkiss will change the way you view your food and understand your past.Dr. Purkiss uses the story of food as a revelatory device to chart changing views on class, gender, and tradition through the ages. Sprinkled throughout with glorious details of historical quirks – trial by ordeal of bread, a fondness for ‘small beer’ and a war-time ice-cream substitute called ‘hokey pokey’ made from parsnips – this book is both an education and an entertainment.English Food explores the development of the coffee trade and the birth of London’s coffee houses, where views were exchanged on politics, art, and literature. Dr. Purkiss introduces the first breeders of British beef and reveals how cattle triggered the terrible Glencoe Massacre. We are taken for tea, to the icehouse, the pantry, and the beehive. We learn that toast is as English as the chalk cliffs. We bite into chicken, plainly poached or exotically spiced. We join bacon curers and fishermen at work. We follow the scent of apples into ancient orchards.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Today’s guest is Ramzi Fawaz, the Romnes Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Published by NYU Press in 2016, The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics is his first book. In 2022, Ramzi published Queer Forms, for which he was interviewed by Lilly Goren for the New Books in Political Science channel. He is also the co-editor of Keywords for Comics Studies, with Deborah Whaley and Shelley Streeby, both with NYU Press. Ramzi’s recently published articles include “Legions of Superheroes: Diversity, Multiplicity, and Collective Action Against Genocide in the Superhero Comic Book,” in Social Text; and wrote the introduction to “Queer About Comics,” a special issue of American Literature, with Darieck Scott.A bit about the book: n 1964, noted literary critic Leslie Fiedler described American youth as "new mutants," social rebels severing their attachments to American culture to remake themselves in their own image. 1960s comic book creators, anticipating Fiedler, began to morph American superheroes from icons of nationalism and white masculinity into actual mutant outcasts, defined by their genetic difference from ordinary humanity. These powerful misfits and "freaks" soon came to embody the social and political aspirations of America's most marginalized groups, including women, racial and sexual minorities, and the working classes.In The New Mutants: Superheroes and the Radical Imagination of American Comics (NYU Press, 2016), Ramzi Fawaz draws upon queer theory to tell the story of these monstrous fantasy figures and how they grapple with radical politics from Civil Rights and The New Left to Women's and Gay Liberation Movements. Through a series of comic book case studies--including The Justice League of America, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and The New Mutants--alongside late 20th century fan writing, cultural criticism, and political documents, Fawaz reveals how the American superhero modeled new forms of social belonging that counterculture youth would embrace in the 1960s and after. The New Mutants provides the first full-length study to consider the relationship between comic book fantasy and radical politics in the modern United States.John Yargo is Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities at Boston College. He earned a PhD in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, specializing in the environmental humanities and early modern culture. In 2023, his dissertation won the J. Leeds Barroll Prize, given by the Shakespeare Association of America. His peer-reviewed articles have been published or are forthcoming in the Journal for Early Modern Culture Studies, Early Theatre, Studies in Philology, and Shakespeare Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Emoji Speak: Communication and Behaviours on Social Media (Bloomsbury, 2023) by Dr. Jieun Kiaer provides an in-depth discussion of emoji use in a global context, this volume presents the use of emoji as a hugely important facet of computer-mediated communication, leading Dr. Kiaer to coin the term 'emoji speak'.Exploring why and how emojis are born, and the different ways in which people use them, this book highlights the diversity of emoji speak. Presenting the results of empirical investigations with participants of British, Belgian, Chinese, French, Japanese, Jordanian, Korean, Singaporean, and Spanish backgrounds, it raises important questions around the complexity of emoji use.Though emojis have become ubiquitous, their interpretation can be more challenging. What is humorous in one region, for example, might be considered inappropriate or insulting in another. Whilst emoji use can speed up our communication, we might also question whether they convey our emotions sufficiently. Moreover, far from belonging to the youth, people of all ages now use emoji speak, prompting Kiaer to consider the future of our communication in an increasingly digital world.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The Nintendo Wii, introduced in 2006, helped usher in a moment of retro-reinvention in video game play. This hugely popular console system, codenamed Revolution during development, signaled a turn away from fully immersive, time-consuming MMORPGs or forty-hour FPS games and back toward family fun in the living room. Players using the wireless motion-sensitive controller (the Wii Remote, or “Wiimote”) play with their whole bodies, waving, swinging, swaying. The mimetic interface shifts attention from what's on the screen to what's happening in physical space. Codename Revolution describes the Wii's impact in technological, social, and cultural terms, examining the Wii as a system of interrelated hardware and software that was consciously designed to promote social play in physical space.Each chapter of Codename Revolution focuses on a major component of the Wii as a platform: the console itself, designed to be low-powered and nimble; the iconic Wii Remote; Wii Fit Plus, and its controller, the Wii Balance Board; the Wii Channels interface and Nintendo's distribution system; and the Wii as a social platform that not only affords multiplayer options but also encourages social interaction in shared physical space. Finally, the authors connect the Wii's revolution in mimetic interface gaming—which eventually led to the release of Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect—to some of the economic and technological conditions that influence the possibility of making something new in this arena of computing and culture.Steven E. Jones is Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago.George K. Thiruvathukal is Professor of Computer Science at Loyola University Chicago. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

David Humphrey’s The Time of Laughter: Comedy and the Media Cultures of Japan (U Michigan Press, 2023) examines the roles of mediated laughter in the media and cultural history of postwar Japan, with a strong focus on the temporality of laughter. As the book shows, comedy has been central to Japanese entertainment from the age of television to the age of social media, identifying the 1980s as a transformative decade. Humphrey’s narrative is particularly attentive to the ambivalent functions of laughter as both unifier and divider. Here, his attention to the gendering of laughter is particularly illuminating. The Time of Laughter is a welcome academic intervention to a critical but, at least in the English-language literature, largely overlooked aspect of the history and culture of Japan over the past seven decades.Nathan Hopson is an associate professor of Japanese language and history in the University of Bergen's Department of Foreign Languages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Long ago, in 1985, personal computers came in two general categories: the friendly, childish game machine used for fun (exemplified by Atari and Commodore products); and the boring, beige adult box used for business (exemplified by products from IBM). The game machines became fascinating technical and artistic platforms that were of limited real-world utility. The IBM products were all utility, with little emphasis on aesthetics and no emphasis on fun. Into this bifurcated computing environment came the Commodore Amiga 1000. This personal computer featured a palette of 4,096 colors, unprecedented animation capabilities, four-channel stereo sound, the capacity to run multiple applications simultaneously, a graphical user interface, and powerful processing potential. It was, Jimmy Maher writes in The Future Was Here, the world's first true multimedia personal computer.Maher argues that the Amiga's capacity to store and display color photographs, manipulate video (giving amateurs access to professional tools), and use recordings of real-world sound were the seeds of the digital media future: digital cameras, Photoshop, MP3 players, and even YouTube, Flickr, and the blogosphere. He examines different facets of the platform--from Deluxe Paint to AmigaOS to Cinemaware--in each chapter, creating a portrait of the platform and the communities of practice that surrounded it. Of course, Maher acknowledges, the Amiga was not perfect: the DOS component of the operating systems was clunky and ill-matched, for example, and crashes often accompanied multitasking attempts. And Commodore went bankrupt in 1994. But for a few years, the Amiga's technical qualities were harnessed by engineers, programmers, artists, and others to push back boundaries and transform the culture of computing.Jimmy Maher is an independent scholar and writer living in Norway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Credited with popularizing the label "ex-wife" in 1929, Ursula Parrott wrote provocatively about divorcées, career women, single mothers, work-life balance, and a host of new challenges facing modern women. Her best sellers, Hollywood film deals, marriages and divorces, and run-ins with the law made her a household name. Part biography, part cultural history, Becoming the Ex-Wife: The Unconventional Life and Forgotten Writings of Ursula Parrott (U California Press, 2023) establishes Parrott's rightful place in twentieth-century American culture, uncovering her neglected work and keen insights into American women's lives during a period of immense social change.Although she was frequently dismissed as a "woman's writer," reading Parrott's writing today makes it clear that she was a trenchant philosopher of modernity--her work was prescient, anticipating issues not widely raised until decades after her decline into obscurity. With elegant wit and a deft command of the archive, Marsha Gordon tells a timely story about the life of a woman on the front lines of a culture war that is still raging today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture