Popular Culture

Popular Culture

episodes

Interviews with scholars of popular culture about their new books.

Erin Lee Mock, "Changed Men: Veterans in American Popular Culture after World War II" (U Virginia Press, 2024)

November 16, 2024

Changed Men

Erin Lee Mock
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Millions of GIs returned from overseas in 1945. A generation of men who had left their families and had learned to kill and to quickly dispatch sexual…

Richard Schoch, "How Sondheim Can Change Your Life" (Atria Books, 2024)

November 14, 2024

How Sondheim Can Change Your Life

Richard Schoch
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

For fans of musical theatre, Stephen Sondheim is one of the true titans – the genius who brought us Sweeney Todd and West Side Story, Into the Woods, …

Elsie Walker, "Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society" (Oxford UP, 2023)

November 14, 2024

Life 24x a Second

Elsie Walker
Hosted by Pete Kunze

Life 24x a Second: Cinema, Selfhood, and Society (Oxford UP, 2023) highlights the life-sustaining and life-affirming power of cinema. Author Elsie Wal…

David Shoemaker, "Wisecracks: Humor and Morality in Everyday Life" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

November 13, 2024

Wisecracks

David Shoemaker
Hosted by Damian Maher

What good is a good sense of humour especially when the humour may be ethically questionable? Although humour seems a valuable part of a good conversa…

Hunter Hargraves, "Uncomfortable Television" (Duke UP, 2024)

November 12, 2024

Uncomfortable Television

Hunter Hargraves
Hosted by Cory Barker

From The Wire to Intervention to Girls, postmillennial American television has dazzled audiences with novelistic seriality and cinematic aesthetics. Y…

Sarah Cleary, "The Myth of Harm: Horror, Censorship and the Child" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

November 12, 2024

The Myth of Harm

Sarah Cleary
Hosted by Jazz Walker

The horror genre has endured a long and controversial success within popular culture. Fraught with accusations pertaining to its alleged ability to ha…

Seth E. Jenny et al., "Routledge Handbook of Esports" (Routledge, 2024)

November 9, 2024

Routledge Handbook of Esports

Seth E. Jenny

The Routledge Handbook of Esports (Routledge, 2024) offers the first fully comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of esports, one of the fastest growi…

Yaraslau Kot, "Central and Eastern European Histories and Heritages in Video Games" (Routledge, 2024)

November 7, 2024

Central and Eastern European Histories and Heritages in Video Games

Michal Mochocki, Pawel Schreiber, Jakub Majewski, and Yaraslau Kot

Focusing on games that examine a range of national histories and heritages from across Central and Eastern Europe, Central and Eastern European Histor…

David Rowell, "The Endless Refrain: Memory, Nostalgia, and the Threat to New Music" (Melville House, 2024)

November 6, 2024

The Endless Refrain

David Rowell
Hosted by Bradley Morgan

A veteran music journalist argues that the rise of music streaming and the consolidation of digital platforms is decimating the musical landscape, wit…

Jonathan A. Allan, "Uncut: A Cultural Analysis of the Foreskin" (U Regina Press, 2024)

November 2, 2024

Uncut

Jonathan A. Allan
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

The “uncut” penis is viewed by some as attractive or erotic, and by others as ugly or undesirable. Secular parents of male infants worry about whether…

Richard Moss, "Tale of Two Halves: The History Of Football Video Games" (Bitmap Books, 2024)

November 1, 2024

Tale of Two Halves

Richard Moss

Painstakingly researched and written by football-obsessed writer and experienced game journalist, historian, and documentarian Richard Moss – author o…

Erika Engelhaupt, "Go to Hell: A Traveler's Guide to Earth's Most Otherworldly Destinations" (National Geographic, 2024)

November 1, 2024

Go to Hell

Erika Engelhaupt
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

With Go to Hell: A Traveler's Guide to Earth's Most Otherworldly Destinations (National Geographic, 2024) by Erika Engelhaupt, you can go to hell and …

Andrew deWaard, "Derivative Media: How Wall Street Devours Culture" (U California Press, 2024)

October 27, 2024

Derivative Media

Andrew deWaard
Hosted by Pete Kunze

Sequels, reboots, franchises, and songs that remake old songs—does it feel like everything new in popular culture is just derivative of something old?…

Landon Palmer, "Rock Star/Movie Star: Power and Performance in Cinematic Rock Stardom" (Oxford UP, 2020)

October 26, 2024

Rock Star/Movie Star

Landon Palmer
Hosted by Pete Kunze

During the mid-1950s, when Hollywood found itself struggling to compete within an expanding entertainment media landscape, certain producers and studi…

Margarette Lincoln, "Perfection: 400 Years of Women's Quest for Beauty" (Yale UP, 2024)

October 26, 2024

Perfection

Margarette Lincoln
Hosted by Jane Scimeca

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…

Thinking Machines: The Turing Test at 75

October 23, 2024

Thinking Machines: The Turing Test at 75

Hosted by UConn PopCast

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…

Ashawnta Jackson, "Soul-Folk" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

October 19, 2024

Soul-Folk

Ashawnta Jackson
Hosted by Bradley Morgan

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-…

Peter C. Kunze, "Staging a Comeback: Broadway, Hollywood, and the Disney Renaissance" (Rutgers UP, 2023)

October 19, 2024

Staging a Comeback

Peter C. Kunze
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the early 1980s, Walt Disney Productions was struggling, largely bolstered by the success of its theme parks. Within fifteen years, however, it had…

Anne Higonnet, "Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution" (Norton, 2024)

October 18, 2024

Liberty Equality Fashion

Anne Higonnet
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Joséphine Bonaparte, future Empress of France; Térézia Tallien, the most beautiful woman in Europe; and Juliette Récamier, muse of intellectuals, had …

Brad Balukjian, "The Six Pack: On the Open Road in Search of Wrestlemania" (Hachette, 2024)

October 18, 2024

The Six Pack

Brad Balukjian
Hosted by Paul Knepper

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…