The Journal of Popular Culture

The Journal of Popular Culture (TJPC) is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association.  It is published by Wiley Blackwell.  Subscriptions come with a membership in the Popular Culture Association.

Submissions to TJPC are submitted online. Please see our submissions link above for more information.  For information on submitting book reviews, please contact our book review editor, Tricia Jenkins. Contact information is below.
 

Recent Articles

April 2016

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• Pamela Demory, "Hedwig Queers Hollywood"

• Heidi R. Lewis, "Let Me Just Taste You: Lil Wayne and Rap's Politics of Cunnilingus"

• Andrew Silver, "Asterios Polyp and the Search for Organic Form"

• Shannon O'Sullivan, "Playing 'Redneck': White Masculinity and Working-Class Performance on Duck Dynasty"

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Editorial Advisory Board

Recent Publications

Sad News - Deborah Carmichael 

25 June 2016

A message from the Editor of the Journal of Popular Culture, Ann Larabee

I am sad to report that Deborah Carmichael, managing editor of The Journal of Popular Culture for many years, died peacefully this week after a short illness. 

I know that many of you have had contact with Deb, either in her duties as managing editor or as the chair of the Sixties area of the national PCA/ACA conference. Deb had a big personality, a commitment to the profession, and a wonderfully sweet disposition. She was sage counselor and good friend to many colleagues and students here at Michigan State University. There was no one like her, and she will be missed. 

A colleague of hers drafted this statement: "Deborah Carmichael was a thoughtful and caring teacher in the Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures Department at MSU. A good listener and friend, Deb always kept her door open for students and colleagues alike. She received her Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University, where she studied nineteenth-century American literature, and film and popular culture. There, she researched Oklahoma film circuits as cultural centers in small agricultural communities. Deb also served as managing editor of the Journal of Popular Culture and Editor-in-Chief of Film and History. She published scholarly articles, did textbook editing, and gave numerous conference presentations on popular culture at the regional, national, and even international levels. Deb was active in the American Federation of Teachers union, and had just been elected as its president. She traveled widely, to Australia (invited conference speaker) and to Europe and the Middle East, and had lived in Oklahoma, Florida, and New York City, where she was a fashion merchandiser. About one year ago, she was preceded in death by her long-time and much beloved partner Michael Baldwin."

I wish that she could have been here to celebrate the journal's fiftieth anniversary, but I know she will be here in spirit and in her lasting contribution to the organization.

Ann Larabee
Editor, Journal of Popular Culture

Call for Papers Special Issue
Global Fashion: Media, Consumption, and Technology

Fashion travels on a never-ending journey from one century to another, across country and culture and from one generation to the next. Moving from sweatshop to wardrobe; season to season, page to screen, newspaper to website, camera to blog, catwalk to shopping malls, designer to consumer, writer to reader, artist to audience, and across the lifetime of a individual’s wardrobe. 

The study and practice of fashion is located across space and place as a form of creative expression and as a subject for academic analysis. Fashion is a universal theme for novelists; poets, playwrights, directors, writers, creators, designers, merchants, advertisers, bloggers and consumerists who are drawn to the power of appearances.

This issue of The Journal of Popular Culture will focus on the material and non-material forms of fashion for a range of professional, commercial, historical, social, cultural, and creative purposes. This issue will be international and cross-cultural in order to highlight the largely global multiple flows of fashion discourse and to broaden the analysis of fashion beyond a purely traditional Western frame of analysis.

Manuscripts could include the way that fashion has been used as a mediated form of content for advertising and branding campaigns or as a subject for fashion documentaries across the 20th century. Equally, these fashion narratives can encompass the professional expressions of fashion from design to journalistic commentary on the fashion industry in editorials and blogs. Events surrounding fashion on a global scale such as shopping behaviors and retailing’s latest developments are key issues to this issue. Lastly, fashion can also be analyzed from the perspective of fashion as a literary and filmic device or trope for character development and authentic social scene setting in novels, films, videos, photographs, and art. Submitters are also encouraged to define their own ideas of global narratives and cultural flows.

Papers fitting the issue's theme are sought from those engaged in the cross disciplinary fields of fashion studies, humanities, anthropology, history, cultural studies, visual studies, creative writing, professional writing, communication, media studies, media production, cultural studies, language studies, design, architecture, art, curatorial studies, philosophy, management and business, and the social sciences. 

Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: Fashion and/in films and television programs • Fashion as/in art • Fashion in/as documentaries • Fashion in/as film • Fashion as/in poetry • Fashion journalism • Fashion and social media • Fashion events and shows • Fashion archives • Fashion illustration • Fashion and/in marketing communication • Fashion advertising • Fashion brands and branding • Fashion merchandising • Fashion promotion • Fashion writing • Fashion discourse • Fashion communication • Fashion as/in videos and viral media • Fashion photography • Fashion and performance • Fashion and the consumer • Fashion and the body • Fashion style trend • Fashion travel • Fashion and popular culture • Fashion and cultural hybridity • Fashion and politics • Fashion and trade • Fashion and economy • Fashion and gender

Articles should be between 5000 and 7500 words in length. Authors should consult The Journal of Popular Culture’s “Author Guidelines” for details on format and citation style. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5931/homepage/ForAuthors.html 

The deadline for submissions is September 1, 2016.  Please submit your work through the ScholarOne system, which can be accessed through the above link. 

It is important that you include the words “Special Issue Submission” before your title (e.g. Special Issue Submission: Fashion and Politics in America's Next Top Model).

Any questions regarding this issue should be sent to Joseph H. Hancock, II Drexel University at jhh33@drexel.edu.

Editors of this Issue Include:

Joseph H. Hancock, II, PhD.
Associate Professor, Design & Merchandising
Drexel University
Westphal College of Media Arts and Design
3141 Chestnut Street
Urban Center #110G
Philadelphia, PA. 19104
Email: jhh33@drexel.edu

Jessica Strübel, Ph.D.,
Assistant Professor
University of North Texas
College of Merchandising, Hospitality & Tourism
Chilton Hall 342H
1155 Union Circle #311100
Denton, Texas 76203-5017
Jessica.strubel@unt.edu 

Keith Nishida
Assistant Professor, Fashion Marketing
School of Business
Woodbury University
7500 N. Glenoaks Boulevard
Burbank CA 91510-7846
Keith.Nishida@woodbury.edu

Anne Peirson-Smith, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of English
College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences
City University of Hong Kong
83 Tat Chee Avenue
Kowloon Tong
Hong Kong
Email: enanneps@cityu.edu.hk
 

Call for Papers Special Issue
Neoliberalism in Popular Culture

The nature of the so-called “neoliberal age” demands consideration. From its origins as a response to fascism, to its fringe status during the post-war boom, to its current embrace across the political spectrum, neoliberalism is much more than an eclectic call for free-market ideals by economists such as F.A. Hayek and Milton Friedman. Unprecedented levels of deregulation transform media content as well as its criticism. Popular culture, one can argue, frequently supports neoliberalism by disguising wealth inequality, conjuring illusions of colorblindness, distracting consumers via “greenwashing,” and more. On the other hand, one might contend that neoliberal policy dismantles oppressive mechanisms of control and opens the door for new creative forms to be enjoyed by liberated “prosumers.”Neoliberal thought thus significantly impacts our everyday performances, practices, and imaginative productions.

This issue of The Journal of Popular Culture will focus on how neoliberalism shapes – and is shaped by – popular culture.  It will survey the myriad of ways in which popular culture reflects, refines, or refutes the tenets of this social framework. For instance, how do single-shooter video games affirm, or challenge, neoliberalism? Or, does the proliferation of streaming media content influence the trajectory of these values? This issue will also consider how critical responses to popular culture frequently harbor neoliberal tendencies. Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, for example, can be read as (at least partially) complicit. Importantly, the scope of this issue will not be confined to Western nations. The guiding principles of neoliberalism underpin countless seismic shifts, from Chile to China.

Manuscripts fitting this issue’s theme are sought from a broad array of disciplinary orientations, including (but not limited to) the humanities, economics, communications, cultural studies, film and television studies, new media studies, philosophy, sociology, and marketing.

Articles should be between 5000 and 7500 words in length. Authors should consult The Journal of Popular Culture’s “Author Guidelines” for details on format and citation style: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1540-5931/homepage/ForAuthors.html

The deadline for submissions is January 1, 2017. Please submit your work through the ScholarOne system, which can be accessed through the above link.

It is important that you include the words “Special Issue Submission” before your title.

Any questions regarding this issue should be sent to Michael J. Blouin at MJBlouin@milligan.edu.

Editors of this Issue include:

Michael J. Blouin                                                                                                Assistant Professor, English and the Humanities                                        Milligan College