From 1830, if not before, the Empire began to permeate the domestic culture of Empire nations in many ways. From consumables, to the excitement of colonial wars, celebrations relating to events in the history of Empire, and the construction of Empire Day in the early Edwardian period, most citizens were encouraged to think of themselves not only as citizens of a nation but of an Empire. Much of the popular culture of the period presented Empire as a force for ‘civilisation’ but it was often far from the truth and rather, Empire was a repressive mechanism designed ultimately to benefit white settlers and the metropolitan economy. This four volume collection on Empire and Popular Culture contains a wide array of primary sources, complimented by editorial narratives which help the reader to understand the significance of the documents contained therein. It is informed by the recent advocacy of a ‘four-nation’ approach to Empire containing documents which view Empire from the perspective of England, Scotland Ireland and Wales and will also contain material produced for Empire audiences, as well as indigenous perspectives. The sources reveal both the celebratory and the notorious sides of Empire.

Popular culture is invariably a vehicle for the dominant ideas of its age. Never was this more true than in the late-19th and early 20th centuries, when it reflected the nationalist and imperialist ideologies current throughout Europe. This text examines the various media through which nationalist ideas were conveyed in late-Victorian and Edwardian times - in the theatre, "ethnic" shows, juvenile literature, education and the iconography of popular art. Several chapters look beyond World War I, when the most popular media, cinema and broadcasting, continued to convey an essentially late-19th-century world view, while government agencies like the Empire Marketing Board sought to convince the public of the economic value of empire. Youth organizations, which had propagated imperialist and militarist attitudes before the war, struggled to adapt to the new internationalist climate.

FOX's musical drama Empire has been hailed as the savior of broadcast television, drawing 15 million viewers a week. A "hip-hopera" inspired by Shakespeare's King Lear and 1980s prime-time soap Dynasty, the series is at the forefront of a black popular culture Renaissance--yet has stirred controversy in the black community. Is Empire shifting paradigms or promoting pernicious stereotypes? Examining the evolution and potency of black images in popular culture, the author explores Empire's place in a diverse body of literature and media, data and discussions on respectability.

Topographies of Popular Culture departs from the deceptively simple notion that popular culture always takes place somewhere. By studying the spatial and topographic imaginations at work in popular culture, the book identifies and illustrates several specific tendencies that deserve increased attention in studies of the popular. In combining the study of popular texts with a broad variety of geographical contexts, the volume presents a global and cross-cultural approach to popular culture’s topographies. In part, Topographies of Popular Culture takes its cue from recent theorisations of spatiality in the field of critical theory, and from such global transformations as the processes and after-effects of decolonisation and globalisation. It contemplates the spatiality of genre and the interactions between the local and the global, as well as the increasing circulation and adaptation of popular texts across the globe. The ten individual chapters analyse the spaces of popular culture at a scale that extends from an individual’s everyday experience to genuinely global questions, offering new theoretical and analytical insights into the relation between spatiality and the popular.

This innovative and engaging textbook is the first to survey the field of popular geopolitics, exploring the relationship between popular culture and international relations from a geographical perspective. Jason Dittmer connects global issues with the questions of identity and subjectivity that we feel as individuals, arguing that who we think we are influences how we understand the world. Each chapter focuses on a specific theme—such as representation, narrative, and affect—by explaining the concept and then considering some of the key debates that have revolved around it. Finally, each chapter illustrates its concept with a concrete case study, including first-person shooter video games, blogging, and comic books. Students will enjoy the text's accessibility and colorful examples, and instructors will appreciate the way the book brings together a diverse, multidisciplinary literature and makes it understandable and relevant.

A comprehensive, informal overview of world history and popular culture. Popular Culture: From Cavespace to Cyberspace traces the history of people's cultures from primitive to postmodern times. Educational, informative, and absorbing, this book contains interesting facts on such figures as King Tut, Henry Ford, Bill Gates, and Madonna, linking you to the world, past and present. Popular Culture highlights important historical events such as the American, French, Russian, and Chinese Revolutions while examining world-changing social movements. You will go on a journey through time, exploring the cultures of the world, venturing from cavespace to tomb space, to temple space, then medieval space, to modern space and post-modern epochs, and finally to cyberspace. While moving through cultural history, you will explore such stories and discoveries as: the 1991 discovery of Oetzi the Ice Man, who is 5,300 years old the legends of the Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and Americans who or what turned on the light to the Dark Ages the impact of René Descartes: “I think, therefore I am,” and the inspiration of the Enlightenment modernism and the determination to be up to date the incredible 20th century that McDonaldized the world postmodernism and its technology cyburbia and globalism Popular Culture contains a wide collection of stories covering cultural phenomena such as Tutmania, the Crusades, the Ninja Turtles, Hamburger University, elitism, Shakespeare, America's Frontier Thesis, The Global Village, and the coming millennium. You will be intrigued by the plethora of fascinating links that Professor Fishwick makes in this comprehensive guide to ever-changing popular culture.

Drawing together the insights of postcolonial scholarship and cultural studies, Popular Postcolonialisms questions the place of ‘the popular’ in the postcolonial paradigm. Multidisciplinary in focus, this collection explores the extent to which popular forms are infused with colonial logics, and whether they can be employed by those advocating for change. It considers a range of fiction, film, and non-hegemonic cultural forms, engaging with topics such as environmental change, language activism, and cultural imperialism alongside analysis of figures like Tarzan and Frankenstein. Building on the work of cultural theorists, it asks whether the popular is actually where elite conceptions of the world may best be challenged. It also addresses middlebrow cultural production, which has tended to be seen as antithetical to radical traditions, asking whether this might, in fact, form an unlikely realm from which to question, critique, or challenge colonial tropes. Examining the ways in which the imprint of colonial history is in evidence (interrogated, mythologized or sublimated) within popular cultural production, this book raises a series of speculative questions exploring the interrelation of the popular and the postcolonial.

Empire’s Tracks boldly reframes the history of the transcontinental railroad from the perspectives of the Cheyenne, Lakota, and Pawnee Native American tribes, and the Chinese migrants who toiled on its path. In this meticulously researched book, Manu Karuka situates the railroad within the violent global histories of colonialism and capitalism. Through an examination of legislative, military, and business records, Karuka deftly explains the imperial foundations of U.S. political economy. Tracing the shared paths of Indigenous and Asian American histories, this multisited interdisciplinary study connects military occupation to exclusionary border policies, a linked chain spanning the heart of U.S. imperialism. This highly original and beautifully wrought book unveils how the transcontinental railroad laid the tracks of the U.S. Empire.

Evil isn't simply an abstract theological or philosophical talking point. In our society, the idea of evil feeds entertainment, manifests in all sorts of media, and is a root concept in our collective psyche. This accessible and appealing book examines what evil means to us. Evil has been with us since the Garden of Eden, when Eve unleashed evil by biting the apple. Outside of theology, evil remains a highly relevant concept in contemporary times: evil villains in films and literature make these stories entertaining; our criminal justice system decides the fate of convicted criminals based on the determination of their status as "evil" or "insane." This book examines the many manifestations of "evil" in modern media, making it clear how this idea pervades nearly all aspects of life and helping us to reconsider some of the notions about evil that pop culture perpetuates and promotes. Covering screen media such as film, television, and video games; print media that include novels and poetry; visual media like art and comics; music; and political polemics, the essays in this book address an eclectic range of topics. The diverse authors include Americans who left the United States during the Vietnam War era, conservative Christian political pundits, rock musicians, classical linguists, Disney fans, scholars of American slavery, and experts on Holocaust literature and films. From portrayals of evil in the television shows The Wire and 24 to the violent lyrics of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse to the storylines of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter books, readers will find themselves rethinking what evil is—and how they came to hold their beliefs.

In Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge, Mayhill C. Fowler tells the story of the rise and fall of a group of men who created culture both Soviet and Ukrainian. This collective biography showcases new aspects of the politics of cultural production in the Soviet Union by focusing on theater and on the multi-ethnic borderlands. Unlike their contemporaries in Moscow or Leningrad, these artists from the regions have been all but forgotten despite the quality of their art. Beau Monde restores the periphery to the center of Soviet culture. Sources in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Yiddish highlight the important multi-ethnic context and the challenges inherent in constructing Ukrainian culture in a place of Ukrainians, Russians, Poles, and Jews. Beau Monde on Empire’s Edge traces the growing overlap between the arts and the state in the early Soviet years, and explains the intertwining of politics and culture in the region today.