New Books in Popular Culture

In Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age (Headpress, 2023), Will York draws on over 100 interviews with musicians, artists, and scene participants as well as zines and other ephemera from the time period to chronicle post-punk San Francisco. York starts with the Punk Era and moves through Post Punk, Hard Core, the Eighties and into the Nineties, to explore the golden age of analog DIY culture, from the dark cabaret of Tuxedomoon and Factrix, the apocalyptic sounds of Minimal Man and Flipper, the conceptual humor of Gregg Turkington's Amarillo Records; through to the subversive pop music of Faith No More, the left-field experimentalism of Caroliner, Mr. Bungle, and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, and much more. It's a tale full of existential drama, tragic anti-heroes, dark humor, spectacular failures--and even a few improbable successes. In addition, York has a companion podcast to delve further into the scene and the interviews.Rebekah Buchanan is a Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

In this episode, our host Sim Gill discusses the book Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste (2021) by Jonathan Gray.You’ll hear about: A brief history of the book and its connection to global studies of media and communication; The role of media and cultural studies in amplifying the voices of dislikers, and how can scholars in these fields better understand and appreciate the register of dislike; The method of refractive audience analysis as a way to understand how adaptations of media texts affect people's perceptions of the original texts; How paratexts can shape audience perceptions and understanding of a media product; How the gendered norms may hinder women from expressing dislike, and how this relates to larger cultural systems of dislike, including political contexts; Some recent developments that have added to or changed the initial arguments/findings in the book. About the bookDislike-Minded draws from over two-hundred qualitative interviews to probe what the media’s failures, wounds, and sore spots tell us about media culture, taste, identity, representation, meaning, textuality, audiences, and citizenship. The book refuses the simplicity of Pierre Bourdieu’s famous dictum that dislike is (only) snobbery. Instead, Jonathan Gray pushes onward to uncover other explanations for what it ultimately means to dislike specific artifacts of television, film, and other media, and why this dislike matters. You can find the book here by NYU Press.Author: Jonathan Gray is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work examines how media entertainment and its audiences interact, and examines how and where value and meaning are created. He is now Chief Editor of The International Journal of Cultural Studies, co-editor, with Aswin Punathambekar and Adrienne Shaw, of NYU Press’ Critical Cultural Communication book series, and I was recently nominated as an International Communication Association Fellow.Host: Sim Gill is a doctoral student at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests concern the social and subjective effects of discourse and institutional politics as well as the interrelationships between discourse, epistemology, and subjectivity. Her master's thesis evaluated the meaning-making behind the term BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic), commonly used to describe minority ethnic communities in Britain.Editor & Producer: Jing WangKeywords: Dislike, audience studies, media cultures, identity, representation, citizenshipOur podcast is part of the multimodal project powered by the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC) at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. At CARGC, we produce and promote critical, interdisciplinary, and multimodal research on global media and communication. We aim to bridge academic scholarship and public life, bringing the very best scholarship to bear on enduring global questions and pressing contemporary issues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The Western as a genre is alive and vibrant, argues University of Maine - Farmington professor of English literature Michael K. Johnson. In Speculative Wests: Popular Representations of a Region and a Genre (U Nebraska Press, 2023), Johnson explains how authors, directors, and storytellers are pushing the classic genre into new directions by hybridizing Western tropes with science fiction, horror, and fantasy storytelling. These new speculative Westerns are revitalizing a genre, which has grown incredibly popular in recent years through television series like The Last of Us and Westworld, as well as many examples in film and literature. Speculative Westerns have also allowed space for Native and African American writers and storytellers to expand the genre into more inclusive spaces, telling stories about people often left out or stereotyped in more traditional Western stories. By including time travel, zombies, and vampires, Johnson argues that the Western has cemented itself with a new generation of Americans as one of the critical cultural narratives for understanding the United States.Dr. Stephen R. Hausmann is an assistant professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

The Price is Right is television's longest-running game show. Since its inception in 1956, contestants have won cars, tropical vacations, diamond jewelry, even a live horse, and the hosts' excited catchphrase "come on down!" has become part of our everyday vernacular. Part of the program's enduring appeal is the apparent ease of the game, guessing the cash value of certain prizes. But, if that's the case, then why do so many contestants come away from the show empty-handed? Solving The Price is Right (Prometheus Books, 2023) is an in-depth exploration of the underlying probability theory of the popular television program that explores how biases and behavioral pitfalls limit our ability to successfully apply logic and math both on and off the show. With rigorous data and analysis compiled from Seasons 47 and 48 (356 total episodes), investor and math practitioner Justin L. Bergner draws strategic and mathematical insights from all facets of the show, from Contestant's Row bidding to the Showcase Showdown, and all 77 Pricing Games, using a combination of game theory, probability theory, statistics, and pattern recognition. In each section, Bergner summarizes contestant performance, highlights the biases leading to sub-par outcomes, and shows how outcomes can be improved by executing the right strategies while avoiding cognitive biases. Throughout, Bergner applies the lessons learned to the fields of business, finance, and our real lives, shedding light on themes of reverse psychology, strategic patience, and the importance of establishing what is sufficient for success in our pursuits. The result is a truly unique and meticulously researched book that uses Solving The Price is Right as a lens to examine our own choices - and how to make better ones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Breakfast Cereal: A Global History (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Kathryn Dolan presents the long, distinguished and surprising history of breakfast cereal.Simple, healthy and comforting, breakfast cereals are a perennially popular way to start the day around the world. They have a long, distinguished and surprising history – around 10,000 years ago, with the advent of agriculture, people began breaking their fast with porridges made from wheat, rice, corn and other grains. It was only in the second half of the nineteenth century, however, in the United States, that a series of entrepreneurs and food reformers created the breakfast cereals we recognize today: Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Cheerios and Quaker Oats, among others.In this global, entertaining and well-illustrated account, Dr. Dolan explores the history of breakfast cereals, including many historical and modern recipes that the reader can try at home.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

An explosive inside look at The Dirty Dozen, the star-studded war film that broke the rules, shocked the critics, thrilled audiences, and became an all-time classic.The year was 1967. A cinematic blockbuster exploded across American popular culture. The Dirty Dozen didn’t just reinvent the “men on a mission” war story, it blew the genre to pieces. Like its ragtag team of misfits, it defied authority, mocked the military, and still managed to deliver action, adventure, and no-holds-barred Nazi-killing. It also received four Oscar nominations, launched the careers of many Hollywood legends, and inspired generations of filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah, Quentin Tarantino, and James Gunn.Based on exclusive interviews with the surviving cast and crew, friends and families of the stars, and other Hollywood insiders, Killin' Generals: The Making of The Dirty Dozen, the Most Iconic WW II Movie of All Time (Citadel Press, 2023) is a riveting must-read for film buffs, military fans, and anyone who loves a down-and-dirty adventure tale. Detailed, insightful, and gossipy, Epstein’s homage spotlights the movie’s endless barrage of cinematic gold.During a time when America was reeling from turmoil, Hollywood held an indelible mirror up to a changing society. Films like Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Cool Hand Luke, and In the Heat of the Night would define the era. But it was a gritty, violent, darkly comic World War II movie called The Dirty Dozen that would really strike a chord with audiences—and become the year’s biggest box office success. Heading up the all-star cast were Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, John Cassavettes, Charles Bronson, Donald Sutherland, Jim Brown, Robert Ryan, Clint Walker, and at his most terrifying best, Telly Savalas, propelling many of them to stardom.Dwayne Epstein is the author of several young adult biographies, covering such celebrity personalities as Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Hilary Swank, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and Denzel Washington for Lucent Books' People in the News series. Epstein also contributed to Bill Krohn's bestselling books Hitchcock at Work and Joe Dante and the Gremlins of Hollywood. His biography Lee Marvin: Point Blank was a New York Times bestseller.Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found at https://fifteenminutefilm.podb... and on Twitter @15MinFilm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

On this episode of the MIT Press podcast, Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela discuss their book, Garage.Frank Lloyd Wright invented the garage when he moved the automobile out of the stable into a room of its own. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (allegedly) started Apple Computer in a garage. Suburban men turned garages into man caves to escape from family life. Nirvana and No Doubt played their first chords as garage bands. What began as an architectural construct became a cultural construct. In this provocative history and deconstruction of an American icon, Olivia Erlanger and Luis Ortega Govela use the garage as a lens through which to view the advent of suburbia, the myth of the perfect family, and the degradation of the American dream.The stories of what happened in these garages became self-fulfilling prophecies the more they were repeated. Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage that now bears a plaque: The Birthplace of Silicon Valley. Google followed suit, dreamed up in a Menlo Park garage a few decades later. Also conceived in a garage: the toy company Mattel, creator of Barbie, the postwar, posthuman representation of American women. Garages became guest rooms, game rooms, home gyms, wine cellars, and secret bondage lairs, a no-commute destination for makers and DIYers--surfboard designers, ski makers, pet keepers, flannel-wearing musicians, weed-growing nuns. The garage was an aboveground underground, offering both a safe space for withdrawal and a stage for participation--opportunities for isolation or empowerment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

A trailblazing figure in film and popular culture, Netherlands native Sylvia Kristel became one of the biggest stars in the world as Emmanuelle in 1974. Alongside her most famous role, directed by Just Jaeckin, a little-known fact is that Sylvia Kristel also appeared in over 20 films between 1973 and 1981 featuring exceptional work with some of the greatest directors in film history including Walerian Borowczyk, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Roger Vadim and Claude Chabrol. Now the story of Sylvia's astonishing career in the '70s is told in Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol (Cult Epics, 2022). Featured are new interviews with Just Jaeckin, Pim de la Parra, Robert Fraisse, Joe Dallesandro and Francis Lai among others. Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol is a film-by-film guide to one of the most distinctive and uncompromising careers in modern cinema, and a celebration of a most remarkable woman in a fully illustrated coffee-table book written by author Jeremy Richey.A recollection of Sylvia Kristel's most exciting period as an actress. Beginning with her early Dutch film roles in Frank & Eva, Because of the Cats, and Naked over the Fence, this book covers all 22 movies Sylvia starred in between 1973 and 1981 including the European films Emmanuelle, Julia, No Pockets in a Shroud, Playing with Fire, Emmanuelle II, Une Femme fidele, La Marge, Alice, Rene the Cane, Goodbye Emmanuelle, Pastorale 1943, Mysteries, Tigers in Lipstick, The Fifth Musketeer, Love in First Class, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and the American films The Concorde.... Airport '79, The Nude Bomb, Private Lessons, plus a chapter on the unmade films, dozens of iconic roles that she was offered but declined written with in-depth detail. Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol also contains many vintage reviews and interviews with Sylvia Kristel never before translated into English, and takes a look at Sylvia's brief music recording career as well.Jeremy R. Richey is a film and music historian and writer originally from Kentucky. The creator of the long-running blogs Moon in the Gutter and Fascination: The Jean Rollin Experience, Richey was also the publisher of the print-only journals Art Decades and Soledad. His work has appeared in a variety of books and magazines as well as on various home video supplements, including audio commentaries for Cult Epics’ releases Madame Claude and the upcoming Julia and Mysteries. Richey currently resides in Bremerton, WA with his beloved dog Ziggy.Jeremy’s website and Instagram.Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America. He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM, serves as a co-chair of the associate board at the Gene Siskel Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and volunteers in the music archive at the Old Town School of Folk Music. Bradley Morgan on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Online masculinity is getting weirder and weirder. We’re way past mere misogyny and sexual predation (though, that’s still certainly there). Now, we’ve also got bro science, ball tanning, ball eatin,’ piss drinkin,’ and who knows what's next.However, perhaps these mockable male influencers are onto something, in a roundabout way. There is just something broken in the hearts of men, as Barbara Ehrenreich once put it. If there wasn't, male influencers wouldn't be as popular as they are. This new mansophere offers a simple for whatever ails: yearning for old gendered hierarchies, obsessing over self-improvement and dieting, and ceaselessly grinding under capitalism. In response, we ask: what's really wrong with men, and how might we fix it?SUPPORT THE SHOWYou can support the show for free by following or subscribing on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whichever app you use. This is the best way to help us out and it costs nothing so we’d really appreciate you clicking that button.If you want to do a little more we would love it if you chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patrons get content early, and occasionally there’s bonus material on there too.ABOUT THE SHOWFor a full list of credits, contact information, and more, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

"OK" as a word accepts proposals, describes the world as satisfactory (but not good), provides conversational momentum, or even agrees (or disagrees). OK as an object, however, tells a story of how technology writes itself into language, permanently altering communication. OK (Bloomsbury, 2023), by Dr. Michelle McSweeney and published by Bloomsbury in 2023, explores this storyOK is a young word, less than 200 years old. It began as an acronym for “all correct” when the steam-powered printing press pushed newspapers into the mainstream. Today it is spoken and written by nearly everyone in the world. Drawing on linguistics, history, and new media studies, Michelle McSweeney traces OK from its birth in the Penny Presses through telephone lines, grammar books, and television signals into the digital age.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