Popular culture in America
By: Paul Buhle, editor.
Contributors: Buhle, Paul, 1944-
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press; Brand: Univ of Minnesota Pr; Univ of Minnesota Pr
Published: 1987
Place of publication: Minneapolis
Language: eng
Number of pages: 271
Subjects: Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 20th century; American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism
Description: Popular Culture in America was first published in 1987. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

The thirty-four essays work toward an understanding of American mass culture not through abstraction but by exploring the real pleasures of ordinary people's lives. Pulp literature (utopian and horror themes, sports and nurse novels, and contemporary science fiction); radio thrillers; TV horror movies: television evangelists; sitcoms; music (polka, country-western, blues, jazz, and rock 'n roll); comic strips (Krazy Kat, Dick Tracy, Zippy); women's humor—these and other topics are given sensitive, detailed—sometimes humorous—attention. Paul Buhle's essay, "The 1960s Meet the 1980s," discusses popular culture scholarship, drawing on a wide range of theory—the Frankfort School, art history, literary criticism, and social science approaches. Buhle argues for the importance of this scholarship as a way of understanding "that missed connection between the cultural promise of a richly diverse, democratic society and the reality at hand.
Notes: Includes bibliographies and index.