How popular culture is engaged by activists to effect emancipatory political change One cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination represents a call for greater clarity about what we’re fighting for—not just what we’re fighting against. Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes “civic imagination” as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culture—from Beyoncé to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VR—for the vernacular through which they can express their discontent with current conditions. A young activist uses YouTube to speak back against J. K. Rowling in the voice of Cho Chang in order to challenge the superficial representation of Asian Americans in children’s literature. Murals in Los Angeles are employed to construct a mythic imagination of Chicano identity. Twitter users have turned to #BlackGirlMagic to highlight the black radical imagination and construct new visions of female empowerment. In each instance, activists demonstrate what happens when the creative energies of fans are infused with deep political commitment, mobilizing new visions of what a better democracy might look like.

"There is a widespread perception that the foundations of American democracy are dysfunctional and little is likely to emerge from traditional politics that will shift those conditions. Youth are often seen as emblematic of this crisis--frequently represented as uninterested in political life and ill-informed about current-affairs. By Any Media Necessary offers a profoundly different picture of contemporary American youth. Young men and women are tapping into the potential of new forms of communication, such as social media platforms and spreadable videos and memes, seeking to bring about political change--by any media necessary. In a series of case studies covering a diverse range of organizations, networks, and movements--from the Harry Potter Alliance, which fights for human rights in the name of the popular fantasy franchise, to immigration-rights advocates using superheroes to dramatize their struggles--By Any Media Necessary examines the civic imagination at work. Exploring new forms of political activities and identities emerging from the practice of participatory culture, By Any Media Necessary reveals how these shifts in communication have unleashed a new political dynamism in American youth."--Book jacket.

"Art and the City" explores the contentious relationship between civic politics and visual culture in Los Angeles. Struggles between civic leaders and modernist artists to define civic identity and control public space highlight the significance of the arts as a site of political contest in the twentieth century.

This book adopts a new approach to the classical world by focusing on ancient popular culture.

"In Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight, Eric Avila offers a unique argument about the restructuring of urban space in the two decades following World War II and the role played by new suburban spaces in dramatically transforming the political culture of the United States. Avila's work helps us see how and why the postwar suburb produced the political culture of 'balanced budget conservatism' that is now the dominant force in politics, how the eclipse of the New Deal since the 1970s represents not only a change of views but also an alteration of spaces."—George Lipsitz, author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness

Practicing Futures: A Civic Imagination Action Handbook is a practical guide for community leaders, educators, creative professionals and change-makers who want to sharpen their visions for the future and understandings of the how the past affects them.

How popular culture is engaged by activists to effect emancipatory political change One cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination represents a call for greater clarity about what we’re fighting for—not just what we’re fighting against. Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes “civic imagination” as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culture—from Beyoncé to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VR—for the vernacular through which they can express their discontent with current conditions. A young activist uses YouTube to speak back against J. K. Rowling in the voice of Cho Chang in order to challenge the superficial representation of Asian Americans in children’s literature. Murals in Los Angeles are employed to construct a mythic imagination of Chicano identity. Twitter users have turned to #BlackGirlMagic to highlight the black radical imagination and construct new visions of female empowerment. In each instance, activists demonstrate what happens when the creative energies of fans are infused with deep political commitment, mobilizing new visions of what a better democracy might look like.

Performance in Popular Culture reveals the intricate relationship between performance and popular culture by exploring how theatrical conventions and dramaturgical tropes have informed the way the social is constructed for popular consumption. Staged as a series of case studies, this book considers the diverse ways the social is imagined and produced in live and mediated performances, in images and texts, in interactive experiences and in cultural institutions. By looking at performance in popular culture, the world we live in becomes more visible, open to investigation and (perhaps) to change. Performance in Popular Culture engages a wide range of disciplines and theoretical frameworks: performance, theatre and cultural studies; comparative literature and media studies; gender and sexuality, critical race and post-colonial theories. Designed for accessibility at an undergraduate level, the case studies make use of visual materials, moving images and texts that are readily available to lecturers and students, to scholars and to the general public.

In an age where film stars become presidents and politicians appear in pop videos, politics and popular culture have become inextricably interlinked. In this exciting new book, John Street provides a broad survey and analysis of this relationship.

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.