New Books in Popular Culture
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New Books in Popular Culture
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000...
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The American Mirage: How Reality TV Upholds the Myth of Meritocracy
In an age of growing wealth disparities, politicians on both sides of the aisle are sounding the alarm about the fading American Dream. Yet despite al...
David M. Henkin, "Out of the Ballpark: How to Think about Baseball" (Oxford UP, 2026)
All over the world, masses of people watch, follow, document, and obsess over baseball. Everything remarkable about the impact of baseball derives fro...
Robert P. Kolker and David Wyatt, "The Film Auteur: Angles of Vision" (Routledge, 2026)
An accessible introduction to the concept of the auteur (author) in film theory.
In The Film Auteur: Angles of Vision (Routledge, 2026) ...
Alexis Lerner, "Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States" (U Toronto Press, 2025)
Post-Soviet Graffiti: Free Speech in Authoritarian States (University of Toronto Press, 2025) is an empirically grounded ethnographic study of how gra...
His Girl Friday
The average estimated words-per-minute in a feature film is 90; His Girl Friday (1940) clocks in at 240. And yet the fast dialogue is only one of its...
Dan Hassler-Forest, "Fast and Furious Franchising: How the Serialized Blockbuster Remade Hollywood" (U Minnesota Press, 2026)
Fast and Furious Franchising charts the transformation of Hollywood through the story of one of its most successful cinematic universes. Released in 2...
Paul Rees, "Raised on Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine and Payola - the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986" (De Capo, 2026)
Paul Rees' Raised on Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine and Payola - the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986 (De Capo, 2026) is a massively entertaining oral biograp...
Ian Gittins, "The Cure: A Perfect Dream" (Gemini Books, 2025)
The story of The Cure: a tall tale of a truly unique British band.
The Cure's story is a fantastical pop fable, but their trajectory has...
What Went Wrong with The Night Manager?
It’s The Pop Culture Professors, and we consider the final three episodes of The Night Manager, season two. We ask what went wrong with the second sea...
Areum Jeong, "K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
K-Pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today (U Michigan Press, 2026) insists that K-pop fan practices and activities constitute a central...
Jonathan Wilson, "The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup" (Bold Type Books, 2025)
As the world prepares for the 2026 World Cup, Jonathan Wilson’s new book, The Power and the Glory: The History of the World Cup (Bold Type Books, 2025...
Bill Kopp, "What's the Big Idea: 30 Great Concept Albums" (Hozac, 2025)
As long as there has been music, the form has been used as a vehicle for storytelling. Artists who have something to say often find that putting it in...
Robert Guffey, "Hollywood Haunts the World: An Investigation into the Cinema of Occulted Taboos" (Headpress, 2026)
In Hollywood Haunts the World: An Investigation into the Cinema of Occulted Taboos (Headpress, 2026), Robert Guffey deconstructs the most powerful tab...
Gaoheng Zhang, "Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities" (Fordham UP, 2025)
Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities (Fordham UP, 2025) by Dr. Gaoheng Zhang designs a novel analytical framework to ap...
Mark Gallagher, "Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, and Male Sex Appeal" (U Texas Press, 2025)
In Cosmosexuals: Screen Acting, Stardom, and Male Sex Appeal (U Texas Press, 2025), Dr. Mark Gallagher presents an examination of male screen sex appe...
Justin L. Mann, "Breaking the World: Black Insecurity and the Horizons of Speculation" (Duke UP, 2026)
Breaking the World: Black Insecurity and the Horizons of Speculation (Duke UP, 2026) takes Black speculative fiction as a central archive for understa...
163* The Drama of Celebrity with Sharon Marcus (JP)
As Oscar Season rolls around, Recall This Book looks back to John's 2019 discussion with Columbia University professor Sharon Marcus about The Drama o...
Rolando Pujol, "The Great American Retro Road Trip: A Celebration of Roadside Americana" (Artisan Publishers, 2025)
Rolando Pujol's The Great American Retro Road Trip: A Celebration of Roadside Americana (Artisan, 2025) celebrates the nostalgic pleasures of America'...
Misty L. Heggeness, "Swiftynomics: How Women Mastermind and Redefine Our Economy" (U California Press, 2026)
A feminist romp through pop culture that illuminates how women influence and shape the economy.
Taylor Swift isn't just a pop megastar. S...
Kay Dickinson, "Fernando: A Song by ABBA" (Duke UP, 2025)
Since its release in 1976, ABBA's song "Fernando" has been loved by fans around the globe both for its sing-along chorus and its revolutionary spirit....
M. Hinds and J. Silverman, "Johnny Cash International: How and Why Fans Love the Man in Black" (U Iowa Press, 2020)
In Johnny Cash International: How and Why Fans Love the Man in Black (University of Iowa Press, 2020), Michael Hinds and Jonathan Silverman examine tr...
Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams, "Kubrick: An Odyssey" (Pegasus Books, 2024)
The definitive biography of the creator of 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange, presenting the most in-depth portrait yet of th...
Is 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple the Most Important Movie of the Year?
It’s The Pop Culture Professors, and today we analyze the new movie 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. A parable of humanism and dehumanization centered...
The Friends of Attention, "Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement" (Crown, 2026)
“You are correct: something is seriously wrong.” So begins Attensity: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement (Crown, 2026) written by membe...
Christopher Lynch, "Formulating Foster: Stephen C. Foster and the Creation of a National Musical Myth" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Stephen C. Foster (1826–1864) was a prolific song composer. A few of his minstrel tunes have become so enmeshed in American musical culture that they...
Min Joo Lee, "Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Finding Mr. Perfect: K-Drama, Pop Culture, Romance, and Race (Rutgers UP, 2025) by Dr. Min Joo Lee explores the romantic relationships between Korean...
Johanna Lukate, "(Dis)Entangled: Black Hair, Race, and Identity" (Coronet, 2025)
Even before we get to introduce ourselves by name, our hair has already started to tell stories about who we are, where we are from and where we are a...
The Night Manager Episodes 1—3 Analysis: It Never Ends!
It’s The Pop Culture Professors, and we analyze the first three episodes of The Night Manager, season two. We consider the season as a continuation of...
Vanessa Díaz and Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, "P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance" (Duke UP, 2026)
P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance (Duke UP, 2026) explores the work of Puerto Rican musical superstar Bad Bunn...
Angie Hobbs, "Why Plato Matters Now" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
Does Plato matter? An ancient philosopher whose work has inspired and informed countless thinkers and poets across the centuries, his ideas are no lon...
Peter F. Burns et. al, "Disneyland Politics: How a Medium-Size City and Corporate Giant Coexist" (Temple UP, 2025)
When Walt Disney decided to build Disneyland in Anaheim, CA in the 1950s, the move presented a puzzle for Anaheim’s government: How would the city bal...
"Plenty for All: The Art of Rick Fröberg" (Akashic Books, Ltd., 2016)
Rick Fröberg was an accomplished artist and musician born in Southern California who spent most of his early creative years in San Diego before moving...
Stuart Klawans, "Crooked, But Never Common: The Films of Preston Sturges" (Columbia UP, 2023)
In a burst of creativity unmatched in Hollywood history, Preston Sturges directed a string of all-time classic comedies from 1939 through 1948--The Gr...
Rob Harvilla, "60 Songs That Explain The 90s" (Twelve, 2023)
A companion to the #1 music podcast on Spotify, this book takes listeners through the greatest hits that define a weirdly undefinable decade.
Th...
Barbara Jane Brickman, "Suffering Sappho! Lesbian Camp in American Popular Culture" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
An ever-expanding and panicked Wonder Woman lurches through a city skyline begging Steve to stop her. A twisted queen of sorority row crashes her conv...
Pluribus Episodes 8 & 9 Analysis: It’s Over!
It’s The Pop Culture Professors, and we continue our analysis of Pluribus, with our thoughts on episode 8, “Charm Offensive” and episode 9, “La Chico...
Scott Feinberg, “The Hollywood Reporter’s 100 Greatest Film Books of All Time” (2023)
In the October 12, 2023 issue of The Hollywood Reporter, Scott Feinberg offered an annotated list of the 100 greatest film books of all time. Drawing...
J. W. Rinzler and Lee Unkrich, "Stanley Kubrick's The Shining" (Taschen, 2023)
In 1966 Stanley Kubrick told a friend that he wanted to make “the world’s scariest movie.” A decade later Stephen King’s The Shining landed on the dir...
Anna Zeide, "US History in 15 Foods" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
From whiskey in the American Revolution to Spam in WWII, food reveals a great deal about the society in which it exists. Selecting 15 foods that repre...
Kathryn Cornell Dolan, "Breakfast Cereal: A Global History" (Reaktion Books, 2023)
Breakfast Cereal: A Global History (Reaktion, 2023) by Dr. Kathryn Dolan presents the long, distinguished and surprising history of breakfast cereal.<...