Popping Culture

Long popular with students who have used it, Popping Culture presents a compilation of articles dealing with current issues in popular culture, including media violence, sexuality, social inequality, racism, and war. Some of the leading theorists in cultural studies today, including Stuart Ewen, Mark Crispin Miller, William Hoynes, Henry Giroux and Christopher Sharrett among others, take on these subjects with a critical perspective aimed at “popping” the conceptual bubbles that surround them.

The articles are organized around central themes and issues in popular culture today: social class, gender, violence, ideology, and race.

John Sakeris is Professor Emeritus of sociology at Ryerson University in Toronto. He has published articles in the areas of gender, queer studies, and political economy. Murray Pomerance chairs the sociology department at Ryerson, where he studies media and society. In 1995, professors Sakeris and Pomerance created the Media Studies Working Group at Ryerson. Together they have edited Bang Bang, Shoot Shoot! (1999), a collection of essays on guns and popular culture, and Closely Watched Brains (2001).