Popular culture studies are pertinent to many academic fields, ranging from art, music, communications, marketing, and history to political science and anthropology. The subject has had a tremendous impact on research. For example, as political history became less the study of diplomatic history, and as the relevance of all kinds of evidence from neglected topics such as the stage, cinema, sociology and design, and myriad other areas staked their claims, the subject increased enormously in value. A catalyst for the field was the establishment of the Far West Popular Culture Association in...