Library has Volumes 1 and 2.

"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

A third edition of this book is now available. Now in a fully revised and updated edition, this concise and insightful book explores the ways American popular products such as movies, music, television programs, fast food, sports, and even clothing styles have molded and continue to influence modern globalization. Lane Crothers offers a thoughtful examination of both the appeal of American products worldwide and the fear and rejection they induce in many people and nations around the world. Concluding with a projection of the future impact of American popular culture, this book makes a powerful argument for its central role in shaping global politics and economic development.

This book explores the rapid diffusion and 'hybridization' of popular culture as the result of three conditions of the world since the end of World War II: instantaneous communications, widespread consumption in a market-based economy and the visualization of reality. It considers the dominance of American entertainment media and habits of consumption, assessing adaptation and negative reactions to this influence.

"The study of the reciprocal relationship between the Bible and popular culture has blossomed in the past few decades, and the time seems ripe for a broadly-conceived work that assesses the current state of the field, offers examples of work in that field, and suggests directions for further study. This Handbook includes a wide range of topics organized under several broad themes, including biblical characters and themes in popular culture; the Bible in popular cultural genres; "lived" examples; and a concluding section in which we take stock of methodologies like Reception History and the impact of the field on teaching and publishing. These topics are all addressed by focusing on specific examples from film, television, comics, music, literature, video games, science fiction, material culture, museums, and theme parks, to name a few. This book represents a major contribution to the field by some of its leading practitioners, and will be a key resource for the future development of the study of Bible and American popular culture"--

Winner of the Popular Culture Association's 2018 John G. Cawelti Award for the Best Textbook / Primer What is popular culture? Why study popular culture in an academic context? An Introduction to Popular Culture in the US: People, Politics, and Power introduces and explores the history and contemporary analysis of popular culture in the United States. In situating popular culture as lived experience through the activities, objects, and distractions of everyday life, the authors work to broaden the understanding of culture beyond a focus solely on media texts, taking an interdisciplinary approach to analyze American culture, its rituals, beliefs, and the objects that shape its existence. After building a foundation of the history of popular culture as an academic discipline, the book looks broadly at cultural myths and the institutional structures, genres, industries, and people that shape the mindset of popular culture in the United States. It then becomes more focused with an examination of identity, exploring the ways in which these myths and mindset are internalized, practiced, and shaped by individuals. The book concludes by connecting the broad understanding of popular culture and the unique individual experience with chapters dedicated to the objects, communities, and celebrations of everyday life. This approach to the field of study explores all matters of culture in a way that is accessible and relevant to individuals in and outside of the classroom.

This handbook seeks to assemble in one place the basic bibliographical data needed to begin the study of most of the major areas of popular culture. Each chapter provides a brief chronological survey of the development of the medium or topic; a critical guide in essay form to the standard reference works, bibliographies, histories, critical studies, and journals; a description of research centers and collections of primary and secondary materials; and a bibliography of works cited in the text. The revised edition includes new material and chapters on topics such as business, catalogs, computers, dance, fashion, gardening, and graffiti. ISBN 0-313-25406-0 (set: lib. bdg.) $150.00 (For use only in the library).

The Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies surveys the materials, approaches, concepts, and applications of the field to provide a sweeping guide to American folklore and folklife, culture, history, and society. Forty-three comprehensive and diverse chapters delve into significant themes and methods of folklore and folklife study; established expressions and activities; spheres and locations of folkloric action; and shared cultures and common identities. Beyond the longstanding arenas of academic focus developed throughout the 350-year legacy of folklore and folklife study, contributors at the forefront of the field also explore exciting new areas of attention that have emerged in the twenty-first century such as the Internet, bodylore, folklore of organizations and networks, sexual orientation, neurodiverse identities, and disability groups. Encompassing a wide range of cultural traditions in the United States, from bits of slang in private conversations to massive public demonstrations, ancient beliefs to contemporary viral memes, and a simple handshake greeting to group festivals, these chapters consider the meanings in oral, social, and material genres of dance, ritual, drama, play, speech, song, and story while drawing attention to tradition-centered communities such as the Amish and Hasidim, occupational groups and their workaday worlds, and children and other age groups. Weaving together such varied and manifest traditions, this handbook pays significant attention to the cultural diversity and changing national boundaries that have always been distinctive in the American experience, reflecting on the relative youth of the nation; global connections of customs brought by immigrants; mobility of residents and their relation to an indigenous, urbanized, and racialized population; and a varied landscape and settlement pattern. Edited by leading folklore scholar Simon J. Bronner, this handbook celebrates the extraordinary richness of the American social and cultural fabric, offering a valuable resource not only for scholars and students of American studies, but also for the global study of tradition, folk arts, and cultural practice.

From “Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)?” to a list of all song titles containing the word “werewolf,” Rock Music in American Popular Culture II: More Rock ’n’Roll Resources continues where 1995’s Volume I left off. Using references and illustrations drawn from contemporary lyrics and supported by historical and sociological research on popular cultural subjects, this collection of insightful essays and reviews assesses the involvement of musical imagery in personal issues, in social and political matters, and in key socialization activities. From marriage and sex to public schools and youth culture, readers discover how popular culture can be used to explore American values. As Authors B. Lee Cooper and Wayne S. Haney prove that integrated popular culture is the product of commercial interaction with public interest and values rather than a random phenomena, they entertainingly and knowledgeably cover such topics as: answer songs--interchanges involving social events and lyrical commentaries as explored in response recordings horror films--translations and transformations of literary images and motion picture figures into popular song characters and tales public schools--images of formal educational practices and informal learning processes in popular song lyrics sex--suggestive tales and censorship challenges within the popular music realm war--examinations of persistent military and home front themes featured in wartime recordings Rock Music in American Popular Culture II: More Rock ‘n’Roll Resources is nontechnical, written in a clear and concise fashion, and explores each topic thoroughly, with ample discographic and bibliographic resources provided for additional research. Arranged alphabetically for quick and easy reference to specific topics, the book is equally enjoyable to read straight through. Rock music fans, teachers, popular culture professors, music instructors, public librarians, sound recording archivists, sociologists, social critics, and journalists can all learn something, as the book shows them the cross-pollination of music and social life in the United States.