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Allen, Robert C. Speaking of Soap Operas. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
Though dated in subject matter, this remains an excellent study of the production and consumption
of daytime soap operas.
Allen, Robert C., ed. Channels of Discourse Reassembled:
Television and Contemporary Criticism.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Introduces a variety of critical approaches
to popular culture (semiotics, genre analysis, ideological analysis,
etc.) through essays focusing on American television.
Ang, Ien. Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for
a Postmodern World. London: Routledge, 1996.
Excellent collection of essays exploring
various difficulties and possibilities in analyzing the responses
of popular culture audiences.
Bale, John, and Mike Cronin, ed. Sport and Colonialism.London: Berg, 2003.
Fine set of essays using sport as a lens through which to understand
colonial and postcolonial realities in the global south.
Barthes, Roland. The Fashion System. London: Jonathan Cape, 1983.
Classic, complicated study of how the world
of the high fashion industry uses "fabric texts" and words to create
an abstract world of fashionableness that must at once always change
and always stay the same.
Bird, S. Elizabeth, ed. Dressing in Feathers: The Construction
of the Indian in American Popular Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
Essays range over two centuries and many
forms, from "wild west" shows to Disney's "Pocahontas."
Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks:
An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Continuum, 2001.
Classic study (updated in 1998 edition) of
African American stereotypes, from silent film era to late 20th
century.
Bordo, Susan. The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public
and in Private New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999.
Excellent study of changing images of masculinity
in recent US popular culture.
Burston, Paul and Colin Richardson, eds. A Queer Romance:
Lesbians, Gay Men and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 1995.
Good collection of essays on various ways
that gays and lesbians have been represented in and have responded
to popular culture.
Clover, Carrol J. Men, Women and Chain Saws: Gender in the
Modern Horror Film. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992.
The title says it all. Ever wonder why people
(maybe even you?) like slasher films? Here's a sophisticated set
of psycho-social answers.
Churchill, Ward. Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature,
Cinema and the Colonization of American Indians. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1992.
Blunt, often incisive critique of issues
ranging from genocidal Westerns to sports mascots to New Age wannabe
Indians.
Diawara, Manthia, ed. Black American Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1993.
Excellent collection of essays on aesthetics,
history, and reception of African American film.
Doty, Alexander. Making Things Perfectly Queer: Interpreting
Mass Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
Witty re-reading of popular figures from
Jack Benny to Laverne and Shirley as having a "queer" subtext.
Driver, Susan. Queer Girls and Popular Culture: Reading, Resisting, and Creating Media.New York: Peter Lang, 2007.
Rich exploration of how queer grrls remake heteronormative pop culture to suit their own desires.
Ewen, Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen. Channels of Desire: Mass
Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1982.
Incisive look at how advertising and related
consumer-oriented messages have shaped US culture and consumer
consciousness.
Fregoso, Rose Linda. The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano
Film Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993.
The best study yet of Chicanas as subjects
in and creators of film.
Gamson, Joshua. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary
America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
The best book on the role of pop "celebrities"
in US culture. Utilizes textual, production, and audience analyses.
---. Freaks Talk Back: Tabloid Talk Shows and
Sexual Nonconformity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Excellent book on the strange and wondrous
phenomenon of Jerry Springer-style "tabloid" talk shows. Utilizes
textual, production, and audience analyses.
Gaspar de Alba, Alicia. Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Master’s
House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1998.
Brilliant interpretation of a major Chicano art retrospective
that raises key questions about the construction of high art vs.
popular art among marginalized ethno-racialized groups.
Gray, Herman. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle
for "Blackness." Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
Brilliant interpretation of the evolution
of representations of African Americans in television news and fiction
programming, from the 1980s to the present.
Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image
in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.
Among the very best general works on African
Americans and film.
Hamamoto, Darrell Y. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and
the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
Wide-ranging study that includes issues of
internment, and the war in Southeast Asia, in addition to ongoing,
everyday stereotypes of TV orientalism.
Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. Packaging the Presidency: A History
and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Classic study of how advertising techniques
have shaped the American electoral process.
Jhally, Sut. The Codes of Advertising: Fetishism and the
Political Economy of Meaning in the Consumer Society. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.
Strong study of how advertising texts shape
racial, gender, and class beliefs and create a "consumer" consciousness.
Jhally, Sut and Justin Lewis. Enlightened Racism: The
Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.
Combines audience surveys and textual analysis
to look at how confusions about race and class in the US are reflected
in and reinforced by Cosby's mid-80s show.
Kaplan, E. Ann. Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television,
Postmodernism and Consumer Culture. New York: Methuen, 1987.
Sophisticated analysis of the relations among
MTV videos, consumer culture, and the psychodynamics of identity
formation in youth.
Kellner, Douglas. Media Culture: Cultural Studies, Identity
and Politics Between the Modern and the Postmodern. London; New York: Routledge, 1995.
Broad study that offers both a fully developed
theoretical model and case studies ranging from Rambo to Madonna
to Gulf War news coverage.
Kilpatrick, Jacquelyn.
Celluloid Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
Best general study of images of Native American
Indians in mainstream film.
Kaplan, E. Ann. Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television,
Postmodernism and Consumer Culture. New York: Methuen, 1987.
Sophisticated analysis of the relations among
MTV videos, consumer culture, and the psychodynamics of identity
formation in youth. Lears, T.J. Jackson. Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History
of American Advertising. New York: Basic Books, 1994.
Richly detailed study of the rise of American
advertising in the context of later 19th and early 20th century
American culture.
Lee, Robert G. Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999.
The most comprehensive study to date on Asian
Americans in pop culture, covering two centuries and many different
cultural forms.
Lefèvre, Pascal and Dierick Charles, eds. Forging a
New Medium: The Comic Strip in the Nineteenth Century. Brussel: Vub Brussels University Press, 1999.
Establishes the historical background necessary
to understand the origin and nature of the modern comic strip. Includes
essay on rise of comics in particular countries, among them England,
Spain, Germany, and US, essays from prominent artists in the genre,
as well as a useful timeline on the development of the comic strip.
Levine, Lawrence. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural
Hierarchy in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Highly influential study of the formation
of our current split of "high" and "popular" culture in the later
19th, early 20th century.
Lewis, Lisa. Gender Politics and MTV. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990.
Takes an audience-ethnographic approach that
sees Madonna and similar figures as empowering to girls and young
women.
Lipsitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American
Popular Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990.
Innovative study of relations between mass-produced
pop culture and the realities of communal memory dimly present in
those commodified productions.
---. Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism
and the Poetics of Place. London; New York: Verso, 1994.
Incisive study of various musical ethnic
subcultures and their complex negotiations with the dominant culture
and their co-resisters in a global/local struggle over meaning.
Lutz, Catherine and Jane L. Collins. Reading National Geographic.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
Two visual anthropologists study the racial,
gender, and international politics of this influential journal.
Marc, David. Comic Visions: Television Comedy and American
Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
Generally regarded as the best overall book
on the sit-com.
Marcus, Greil. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock and
Roll Music. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1975.
The revised American Studies dissertation
of one of America's foremost rock critics is a searching study of
the gritty roots of what has become glossy pop culture.
McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993.
Very lucid, rich introduction to the history
and visual and verbal meaning making processes of comic books. The
book itself is done in brilliant comic book form.
McNair, Brian. Mediated Sex: Pornography and Postmodern Culture.
UK: Arnold Publishers, 1996.
Sociology-based analysis weighing various
arguments about the production and consumption of pornography; focused
primarily on the US and Britain.
Nasaw, David. Going Out: The Rise and Fall of Public Amusements.
New York, NY: Basic Books, 1993.
Wide-ranging study of the culture industries
of the early 20th century, with particular emphasis on the role
they played for immigrant workers.
Ohmann, Richard. Selling Culture: Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn of the Century.
London; New York: Verso, 1996.
Excellent study of the role of mass market
magazines in the rise of consumer capitalism in the late 19th, early
20th centuries.
Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure
in Turn-of-the-Century New York. Philadelphia, PN: Temple University Press, 1986.
Classic American Studies text, looking at
the various forms of early 20th century pop culture aimed at women from
the working class.
Pratt, Ray. Rhythm and Resistance: The Political Uses of
Popular Music. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1994.
Examines the political impact of spirituals,
gospel, the blues, and rock 'n' roll in American culture.
Pustz, Matthew. Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers.
Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1999.
Study of contemporary comic strip fans, from
the casual to the nearly pathologically devoted. The subtitle refers
to the author's distinction between mainstream "fanboys" and the
"true believers" devoted to alternative comix culture.
Radway, Janice. A Feeling for Books: the Book-of-the-Month Club,
Literary Taste, and Middle-Class Desire. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, c1997.
One of the few books that looks carefully
at the construction of "middle-brow" taste as exemplified in the
book of the month club's efforts to provide enlightening reading.
---. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy
and Popular Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1991.
One of the most oft-cited "classics" in American
Studies and popular culture, this analysis combines production analysis,
textual analysis and ethnographic audience analysis of the "romance
novel" genre.
Reid, Mark. Redefining Black Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
Important history of the black independent
film industry that has long sought to counter and complicate mainstream
Hollywood representations of African Americans.
Rollins, Peter C., and John E. O'Connor, eds. Hollywood's
Indian. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003.
Good collection of essays on various portrayals of Indians in film from the silent era to the present.
Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in
Contemporary America. Hanover, NH: Published by University Press
of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1994.
Arguably still the best book on rap, this study
analyses both the political economic and cultural roots of rap,
and its textual meanings.
Ross, Andrew. No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture.
New York: Routledge, 1989.
Important collection of essays tracing the
various kinds of analysis US intellectuals have made of popular
culture over the course of the twentieth century.
Ross, Andrew, Tricia Rose, and Andrew Rose, eds. Microphone
Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994.
Excellent collection of essays on rock, rap,
heavy metal, dance scenes, and the youth cultures that surround
them.
Ross, Robert J.S. Slaves to Fashion: Poverty and Abuse in the New Sweatshops. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007.
Excellent study of the dirty underside of the fashion industry.
Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies.
New York: Harper and Row, 1981.
A groundbreaking book analyzing
sex and gender, in regards to homosexuality, in film from the 1920s through the 1980s.
Schudson, Michael. Advertising, the Uneasy Persuasion. New York: Basic Books, 1984.
Careful sociological study of the impact
of advertising on US culture.
Singer, Beverly. Wiping the War Paint Off the Lens: Native American Film and Video (Visible Evidence, V. 10).
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
Excellent study of how Native American filmmakers have sought to offer alternatives to Hollywood's stereotyped and culturally inaccurate views of Native life.
Tomlinson, John.
Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
A fine, brief survey of issues surrounding
the ways in which US pop culture may or may not be overwhelming
other world cultures.
Walters, Suzanna Danuta. All the Rage: The Story of Gay Visibility in America.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.
An excellent book looking not only at gay
visibility in film but in all forms of media up to its publication in 2001. While this book focuses
primarily on television, it does pick up where Russo (above) left off.
Williamson, Judith. Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and
Meaning in Advertising. London: Boyars, 1978.G
The classic text on how advertisements address
and create their audiences.
Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean.Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2007.
A worthy addition to the serious study of comics that starts with Scott McLoud's
Understanding Comics.
Wright, Bradford W. Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth
Culture in America.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Offers a social history of US comic books
that shows how changing trends in comic books, from Superman's debut
in 1938 up to the late 20th century, both reflected and contributed
to changing political and cultural values.
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