This collection of essays examines the philanthropy of the elite and current trends to try to democratise the arts. Topics include the hegemony of copyright and trademark in art and popular culture; the relationship between dominant religion and artistic tradition and the cultural significance of the terms high art and popular art.

Statistics indicate that more than half the population of America is illiterate or subliterate in the conventional sense, but very literate in other media such as television, sports, and leisure time activities. But statistics can lie or tell only half a fact. Since the languages of literacy are constantly expanding and developing, it is time that American educators, and the public in general, reexamine their definitions of literacy and the media in which we need to be literate. Therefore, educators must redefine literacy if they are to be realistic about its sources, uses, and values. The...

These essays, written by experts in their fields, demonstrate how necessary it is in the study of the humanities and social sciences to realize the interdependency of the fields and how rich the resulting study can be.

These essays, written by experts in their fields, demonstrate how necessary it is in the study of the humanities and social sciences to realize the interdependency of the fields and how rich the resulting study can be.

The rituals of religion these days as practiced in the United States on television, have become big theatre, a big show. Televangelism is big business, amounting to billions of dollars each year. Televangelists discussed are Billy Graham, Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Falwell, Jim and Tammy Bakker, Terry Cole-Whittaker, Marilyn Hickey, Danuto Rylko Soderman, and Beverly LaHaye.

This volume examines the concept of taboos and tabooism and a dozen powerful ones in our society and suggests the control they exert on our everyday lives.

Popular Abstracts is a reference tool providing access to information appearing in past issues of three journals published by the Bowling Green Popular Press. Abstracts are included for each article appearing in the first ten volumes of The Journal of Popular Culture (1967-1977), the first five volumes of The Journal of Popular Film (1972-1977), and the first four volumes of Popular Music and Society (1971-1975).

The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association found a fixed canon and revolutionized the study of the humanities and social sciences in the United States and around the world by making that canon fluid. The full ramifications of this revolt against traditional academia not finished nor fully understood. This is a record of the goals and accomplishments of the pioneers in this field. The essays recall the barriers that the first pop culture scholars faced and tracks their achievements.

The twenty essays in this effort to bring new vitality to the humanities range through fields familiar in life but unfamiliar in the humanities canon. They include leisure, folk cultures, material culture, pornography, comics, animal rights, Black studies, traveling, and, of course, the bugbear of academics, television.

This collection of essays examines various rituals and ceremonies in American popular culture, including architecture, religion, television viewing, humor, eating, and dancing.