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Interviews with scholars of popular culture about their new books.
A colourful account of women's health, beauty, and cosmetic aids, from stays and corsets to today's viral trends. Victorian women ate arsenic to achi…
During the mid-1950s, when Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studi…
It’s the UConn Popcast, and this is the first episode in our new series about artificial intelligence and popular culture. In this first episode, we r…
Folk music of the 1960s and 1970s was a genre that was always shifting and expanding, yet somehow never found room for so many. In the sounds of soul-…
In the early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was struggling, largely bolstered by the success of its theme parks. Within fifteen years, however, it had…
In 2005, Brad Balukjian left his position as a magazine fact-checker to pursue a dream job: partner with his childhood hero, The Iron Sheik (whose rea…
Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had …
Beth Blum, Associate Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). In 2020, she spoke w…
James Dunnigan’s memorable phrase serves as the first part of a title for this book, where it seeks to be applicable not just to analog wargames, but …
In All the Rage: Power, Pain, Pleasure: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty 1860-1960 (Pegasus Book, 2024) richly detailed account, Virginia Nichols…
There She Goes Again: Gender, Power, and Knowledge in Contemporary Film and Television Franchises (Rutgers UP, 2023) interrogates the representation o…
Perhaps no American landscape is as iconic as the rainbow rocks of Arizona's Grand Canyon. Yet, as the geographer Yolonda Youngs argues, the Grand Can…
It is hard to discuss the current film industry without acknowledging the impact of comic book adaptations, especially considering the blockbuster suc…
A History of Fireworks from Their Origins to the Present Day (Reaktion, 2024) by John Withington illuminates the glittering history of fireworks, from…
Why liberalism is all you need to lead a good, fun, worthy, and rewarding life—and how you can become a better and happier person by taking your liber…
Screening Big Data: Films that Shape Our Algorithmic Literacy (Routledge, 2024) examines the influence of key films on public understanding of big dat…
Listener note: This interview contains discussions of suicide. Resources for people in a crisis: If you or someone you know is in a crisis or is fe…
Konrad Bercovici's The Algonquin Round Table: 25 Years With the Legends Who Lunch (SUNY Press, 2024) is a previously unpublished manuscript exploring …
Pong. The Legend of Zelda. Final Fantasy VII. Rock Band. Fortnite. Animal Crossing: New Horizons. For each of the 40 years of video game history, ther…
Growing up in West Texas, Jane Little Botkin didn’t have designs on becoming a beauty queen. But not long after joining a pageant on a whim in college…