Article List by Author

What Hot Criminals, Anti-Heroes, and Bob Dylan Can Teach Us

Kathryn (“Kate”) Lane
Northwestern Oklahoma State University
Alva, OK
kathrynelanephd@gmail.com

Roxie James
Northwestern Oklahoma State University
Alva, OK
dr.roxie.james@gmail.com

 

Author Bios

Kathryn (“Kate”) Lane, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of English and Department Chairperson at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Her research interests include Victorian literature and culture, popular culture, and feminist theory. She is also the editor of the 2018 book collection Age of the Geek: Depictions of Nerds and Geeks in Popular Media. 

Roxie J. James, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of English in the Department of English at Northwestern Oklahoma State University. She specializes in Romantic and Victorian literature, and her research interests include British women’s writing and depictions of dirt in Victorian literature and culture.

 

Suggested Citation

APA
Lane, K. E. & James, R. (2019). What hot criminals, anti-heroes, and Bob Dylan can teach us. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 6(2), http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/what-hot-criminals-anti-heroes-and-bob-dylan-can-teach-us/

MLA
Lane, Kathryn E. & Roxie J. James. “What Hot Criminals, Anti-Heroes, and Bob Dylan Can Teach Us.”  Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 6, no. 2, 2019, http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/what-hot-criminals-anti-heroes-and-bob-dylan-can-teach-us/.

Download as PDF

Review of Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens

Debbie Olson, PhD
Missouri Valley College
Marshall, MO
olsond@moval.edu

Pimpare, Stephen. Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen. Oxford University Press, 2017. 376 pgs., $34.95.

Stephen Pimpare’s Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens is a unique jaunt through Hollywood films that feature society’s most marginalized and maligned, the homeless and the poor. Pimpare, PhD, is a senior Lecturer in American politics and public policy at the University of New Hampshire and has authored two previous books on poverty and political policy. And while Pimpare carefully acknowledges he is not a film scholar, his insightful examination of the way film (re)presents the poor and homeless is a valuable addition to both political science and cinema scholarship. Overall, Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens is a perceptive look at the intersections of popular imagery and public policy. Continue Reading →

Nature vs. Nurture in Albuquerque: What Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul Teach Us About How We Talk About Criminals

Max Romanowski
Baylor University
Waco, TX, USA
max_romanowski@baylor.edu

Abstract

Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul focus on the criminal transformation of their two main characters, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). While quite similar on the surface, Walter and Jimmy’s narratives represent two different criminal transitions, evoking the classic nature vs nurture conversation. Both of these shows bring the conversation to the idea of inevitability. The nature vs. nurture argument is a popular one because it acts as a teaching tool for how we think and talk about criminal behavior. At first, it follows that since criminality was in Walter White’s nature the whole time, his transition should feel the most inevitable, with the inverse being true of Jimmy. However, since Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad, the opposite ends up happening. Even though Jimmy may only need the right people around him to be saved from his descent, his presence as Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad reminds the audience that it is Jimmy who is already fated to become a criminal. This dichotomy highlights the distinctive pedagogical opportunity present in both of these shows. Through their subversion of the concepts of nature and nurture, they allow for a unique teaching opportunity regarding how we talk about criminals. This article explores what they teach us and how their commentary can be used as a pedagogical tool for learning about criminal behavior in more nuanced ways. 

Keywords: Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Nature, Nurture, Social Learning Theory, Classical Conditioning 

 

Author Bio

Max Romanowski is a doctoral student at Southern Illinois University in the Department of Mass Communication and Media Arts. His research interests include television studies, particularly the sitcom, developments of new media, and science fiction in the 21st century.

 

Suggested Citation

APA:
Romanowski, M. (2019). Nature vs. Nurture in Albuquerque: What Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul teach us about how we talk about criminals. 6(2). Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/nature-vs-nurture-in-albuquerque-what-breaking-bad-and-better-call-saul-teach-us-about-how-we-talk-about-criminals/

MLA:
Romanowski, Max. “Nature vs. Nurture in Albuquerque: What Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul Teach Us About How We Talk about Criminals”. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol.6, no. 2, 2019. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/nature-vs-nurture-in-albuquerque-what-breaking-bad-and-better-call-saul-teach-us-about-how-we-talk-about-criminals/

Download as PDF

If Androids Dream, Are They More Than Sheep? Robot Protagonists and Human Rights

Amanda DiPaolo
St. Thomas University
Fredericton, N.B. Canada
dipaolo@stu.ca

Abstract

The robot protagonists in HBO’s Westworld open the door to several philosophical and ethical questions, perhaps the most complex being: should androids be granted similar legal protections as people? Westworld offers its own exploration of what it means to be a person and places emphasis on one’s ability to feel and understand pain. With scientists and corporations actively working toward a future that includes robots that can display emotion in a way that can convincingly pass as that of a person’s, what happens when androids pass the Turing test, feel empathy, gain consciousness, are sentient, or develop free will? The question becomes more complex given the possibility of computer error. What should happen if robots designed for companionship commit heinous crimes, and without remorse? Westworld poses such social and legal questions to its viewers and is, thus, ripe for classroom discussion. This essay explores the complex and contradictory implications of android hosts overcoming their dehumanization through an awakening to both experience and agency. With television and film holding a mirror up to reality, what can science fiction teach us that would help us prepare for such a possibility?

Keywords: Westworld, artificial intelligence, human rights, Science Fiction, robots

 

Author Bio

Amanda DiPaolo is associate professor of human rights at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B. She is the co-editor of The Politics of Twin Peaks (Lexington, 2019), and has written about nostalgia in Twin Peaks as well as inequality and racism in Mad Men. Her work can be found at https://stthomasu.academia.edu/AmandaDiPaolo. Reach her on Twitter at @profdipaolo.

 

Suggested Citation

APA 

DiPaolo, A. (2019). If androids dream, are they more than sheep?: Westworld, robots, and legal rights. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 6(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/if-androids-dream-are-they-more-than-sheep-robot-protagonists-and-human-rights/

MLA 

DiPaolo, Amanda. “If Androids Dream, Are They More Than Sheep?: Westworld, Robots, and Legal Rights”. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2019, vol 6, no. 2. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/if-androids-dream-are-they-more-than-sheep-robot-protagonists-and-human-rights/

Download as PDF

AMC’s Infamous Criminal Partnerships: Suppressing the Female Antihero

Melissa Vosen Callens
North Dakota State University
Fargo, ND, USA
melissa.vosen@ndsu.edu

Abstract

Using a feminist lens, the author argues that audiences have failed to embrace female characters on AMC as antiheroes, particularly when they are in romantic relationships with male antiheroes, for three primary reasons. First, female characters often challenge binary thinking, and thus, gender role stereotypes. Rather than exhibiting passive, yet nurturing characteristics, characteristics often associated with femininity and motherhood, female characters within the dataset frequently challenge their partners and exert their dominance. Second, writers often fail to fully develop female characters. The absence of their backstories (who they are and what they are thinking) makes it difficult for audiences to relate to and sympathize with these characters. Finally, within the dataset, female characters are rarely viewed as equals in the eyes of their male partners, and the audience takes cues from this treatment. When female characters are childless and/or respected by their male partners, they are more widely accepted as antiheroes. 

In this paper, the author examines some of the most famous criminal antihero partnerships in the top-rated AMC series over the last decade: Walter and Skyler White (Breaking Bad), Rick and Lori Grimes / Rick Grimes and Michonne (The Walking Dead), Don and Betty Draper (Mad Men), and Saul Goodman and Kim Wexler (Better Call Saul). Following this critique, the broader cultural implications of these representations are offered, particularly the disempowerment of women through motherhood.

Keywords: AMC, antihero, feminist criticism, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Better Call Saul

 

Author Bio

Melissa Vosen Callens is currently an associate professor of practice in instructional design and communication at North Dakota State University, Fargo. Her areas of research and teaching interest include Popular Culture and Online Education. Her writing can be found in The Ultimate Walking Dead and Philosophy, English Journal, Communication Teacher, Hollywood Heroines: The Most Influential Women in Film History, and A Sense of Community: Essays on the Television Series and Its Fandom, among other publications.

 

Suggested Citation

APA
Vosen Callens, M. (2019). AMC’s infamous criminal partnerships: Suppressing the female antihero. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 6(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/amcs-infamous-criminal-partnerships-suppressing-the-female-antihero/

MLA
Vosen Callens, Melissa. AMC’s Infamous Criminal Partnerships: Suppressing the Female Antihero. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 6, no. 2. Retreived from http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/amcs-infamous-criminal-partnerships-suppressing-the-female-antihero/

Download as PDF

Breaking the Rules: Playing Criminally in Video Games

James Tregonning
Independent Scholar
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
james.tregonning34@gmail.com

Abstract

Video games have long courted controversy for their frequent valorisation of criminality. However, in this article, I consider heroic criminals in video games from a different perspective. I focus on two games – Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please (2013) and Osmotic Studio’s Orwell (2016) – that position the player as a low-level government operative in a fictional authoritarian regime. Players are expected to process information for their governments, although they are also given opportunities to undermine or subvert the regime. Thus, the trope of heroic criminal is used to comment on the function and role of the state. It becomes the lens through which issues of political philosophy and ethics are balanced against the more pragmatic concerns of personal safety. These multiple competing pressures allow Papers, Please and Orwell to position heroic criminality as a multifaceted problem for the player to critically engage with.

Keywords: Papers, Please; Orwell; video games; criminality; video game violence

 

Author Bio

James Tregonning is a Masters graduate from the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. His area of research is video game narrative, with a specific focus on the narrative potential of virtual space. He writes broadly on video game narrative at Death is a Whale (https://goingthroughthewash.wordpress.com/); his scribblings there have been cited by Critical Distance, a weekly roundup of “the most important critical writing on games.”

 

Suggested Citation

APA

Tregonning, J. (2019). Breaking the rules: Playing criminally in video games. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 6(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/breaking-the-rules-playing-criminally-in-video-games/

MLA

Tregonning, James. “Breaking the Rules: Playing Criminally in Video Games.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2019, vol. 6, no 2. www.journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/breaking-the-rules-playing-criminally-in-video-games/

Download as PDF

Bad Girls: Agency, Revenge, and Redemption in Contemporary Drama

Courtney Watson
Jefferson College of Health Sciences
Roanoke, Virginia, United States
cdwatson@jchs.edu

Abstract

Cultural movements including #TimesUp and #MeToo have contributed momentum to the demand for and development of smart, justified female criminal characters in contemporary television drama. These women are representations of shifting power dynamics, and they possess agency as they channel their desires and fury into success, redemption, and revenge. Building on works including Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, dramas produced since 2016—including The Handmaid’s Tale, Ozark, and Killing Eve—have featured the rise of women who use rule-breaking, rebellion, and crime to enact positive change. 

Keywords: #TimesUp, #MeToo, crime, television, drama, power, Margaret Atwood, revenge, Gone Girl, Orange is the New Black, The Handmaid’s Tale, Ozark, Killing Eve

 

Author Bio

Courtney Watson, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of English and Director of the Humanities & Social Sciences program at Jefferson College of Health Sciences in Roanoke, Virginia. Her scholarly interests include contemporary drama, modernist expatriates, and literary tourism. She is also a fiction writer, essayist, and travel writer. 

 

Suggested Citation

APA
Watson, C. (2019). Bad Girls: Agency, revenge, and redemption in contemporary drama. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 6(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/bad-girls-agency-revenge-and-redemption-in-contemporary-drama/

MLA
Watson, Courtney. “Bad Girls: Agency, Revenge, and Redemption in Contemporary Drama.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy 2019, vol. 6, no. 2. Retreived from journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-2/bad-girls-agency-revenge-and-redemption-in-contemporary-drama/

Download as PDF

Making Your Teaching a Little Sweeter: Pedagogical Implications of Nailed It!

Richard L. Mehrenberg, PhD
Millersville University
Millersville, Pennsylvania, USA
rmehrenberg@gmail.com

Inspiration sometimes comes from the unlikeliest of places. Educators often look to traditional resources such as in-services, graduate classes, and professional journals to improve their pedagogy. However, sometimes great teaching ideas can be found embedded in popular culture. One such example of a T.V. show that has three strong take-aways for teachers is the Netflix Original Series, Nailed It! Continue Reading →

Human Sacrifice and Propaganda in Popular Media: More Than Morbid Curiosity

Jason Tatlock
Georgia Southern University, Armstrong Campus
Savannah, Georgia, USA
jtatlock@georgiasouthern.edu.

Abstract

Representations of human sacrifice, whether based upon real or fictitious events, powerfully demonstrate societal norms and fascinations related to the acceptability of slaying humans for religious or national interests, particularly given the divisive and bloody nature of the topic. Readers of eye-witness accounts, newspaper reports, and historical narratives, and viewers of cinematic productions, war posters, and political cartoons come face to face with the beliefs and agendas of the creators of popular media. Such sources represent the slaying of victims in sacred rituals, as individuals attempt to demarcate societal boundaries along the etic/emic spectrum, be they commentaries on their own cultures or on contemporary foreigners. Those who write about or portray human sacrifice have, in several instances, done so with propagandistic aims related to ethnocentrism, imperialism, and a perceived religious superiority that transfer the topic beyond the realm of mere morbid curiosity to justify forms of dominance like territorial conquest, militarism, and slavery. Moving from the ancient world to contemporary cinema, this study demonstrates both the antiquity of such propagandistic goals and their relevancy to recent portrayals of human sacrifice in film. While Apocalypto (2007) and The Wicker Man (1973) align closely with the historical examples presented, especially in relation to the issue of a perceived Christian ascendancy, The Purge (2013) largely diverges from them. The Purge counters a dominant American ideal that sacrifice for the state is valuable and accentuates the need to protect ethnic minorities from oppression. 

Keywords: human sacrifice, ethnocentrism, imperialism, religious superiority, propaganda, sati, India, West Africa, Rome, Meso-America, United States, Apocalypto, The Wicker Man, and The Purge

Author Bio

Jason Tatlock (PhD, University of Michigan) is Associate Professor of History at Georgia Southern University, Armstrong Campus. He specializes in the study of religious violence, the Abrahamic Faith traditions, the ancient Near East, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Reference Citation:

APA
Tatlock, J. (2019). Human sacrifice and propaganda in popular media: More than morbid curiosity. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 6(1) http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-1/human-sacrifice-and-propaganda-in-popular-media-more-than-morbid-curiosity/

MLA

Tatlock, Jason. Human Sacrifice and Propaganda in Popular Media: More Than Morbid Curiosity. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2019, vol 6, no. 1http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-1/human-sacrifice-and-propaganda-in-popular-media-more-than-morbid-curiosity/

Download as PDF

“Every Time I Write a Rhyme / These People Think It’s a Crime”: Persona Problems in Catullus and Eminem

Jesse Weiner
Hamilton College
Clinton, NY, USA
jweiner@hamilton.edu

Abstract

This essay interprets Eminem’s song, “Criminal” (2000, The Marshall Mathers LP, Track 18), as a Catullan project in establishing distance between the poet and poetic persona, accomplished through Catullan invective. Drawing upon pedagogical experience, I argue that Catullus (a Roman poet of the 1st Century BCE) and Eminem use analogous rhetorical tactics and structures to challenge accusations (real or imagined) of poor character stemming from their poetry. Catullus and Eminem vociferously articulate a separation of art from artist, using common transgressive poetics. Each poet disavows his own self-constructed stance of authenticity with similar threats of violence and postures of hyper-masculine dominance. In so doing, Catullus and Eminem challenge interpretative practices they elsewhere seem to assume and even encourage. Finally, I suggest that the programmatic poems of Catullus and Eminem construct similar readerly personae and that, ultimately, this confluence suggests not only a common poetics but also common discursive strategies in ancient and modern audiences.

Keywords: Catullus, Eminem, hip hop, sexuality and gender studies, transgressive poetry, poetic personae, classical reception studies, poetics

Author Bio

Jesse Weiner is Assistant Professor of Classics at Hamilton College. He publishes broadly in Greek and Latin literature and their receptions in modernity and popular culture. He is co-editor of Frankenstein and Its Classics: The Modern Prometheus from Antiquity to Science Fiction (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). He has previously received a Women’s Classical Caucus Award for his work in sexuality and gender studies. In public humanities, he has served as a program scholar for Ancient Greeks / Modern Lives, and his work has appeared in History Today and The Atlantic.

Suggested Citation

APA:
Weiner, J. (2019). “Every time I write a rhyme / These people think it’s a crime”: Persona problems in Catullus and Eminem. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 6(1). http://journaldialogue.org/uncategorized/every-time-i-write-a-rhyme-these-people-think-its-a-crime-persona-problems-in-catullus-and-eminem/

MLA:
Weiner, Jesse. “Every Time I Write A Rhyme / These People Think It’s A Crime”: Persona Problems In Catullus And Eminem. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2019, vol 6, no. 1. http://journaldialogue.org/uncategorized/every-time-i-write-a-rhyme-these-people-think-its-a-crime-persona-problems-in-catullus-and-eminem/

Download as PDF
https://ahoj.stikesalifah.ac.id/pages/slot-depo-5000/http://ahoj.stikesalifah.ac.id/dana-resmi/https://dedikasi.lp4mstikeskhg.org/slot-dana-depo10k/https://mata.pulaumorotaikab.go.id/public/images/file/1711212514temp.htmlhttps://mata.pulaumorotaikab.go.id/public/images/avatar/1710788275avatar.htmlhttps://alwasilahlilhasanah.ac.id/starlight-princess-1000/https://ahoj.stikesalifah.ac.id/demo/https://www.sa-ijas.org/sweet-bonanza/https://www.remap.ugto.mx/pages/slot-luar-negeri-winrate-tertinggi/https://seer.anafe.org.br/pages/akun-pro-kamboja/https://sipusli.mojokertokab.go.id/upload/~/akun-pro-kamboja/https://bumdesjanjimanahansil.padanglawasutarakab.go.id/products/mpo/https://siduta.dukcapil.baritoselatankab.go.id/assets/idn/https://perizinan.jambikota.go.id/frontend/web/situs-gacor/https://revistas.uia.ac.cr/pages/products/sigmaslot/https://disbudpar.padanglawasutarakab.go.id/assets/https://bumdesjanjimanahansil.padanglawasutarakab.go.id/pt2/https://dedikasi.lp4mstikeskhg.org/docs/https://dedikasi.lp4mstikeskhg.org/slot-deposit-pulsa-tanpa-potongan/https://setwan.katingankab.go.id/asset/slot-dana/https://perizinan.jambikota.go.id/frontend/web/situs-pulsa/https://unsimar.ac.id/akun-pro-kamboja/https://catalog.ndp.utah.edu/uploads/user/2024-03-27-205738.327672mahjong2ways.html/https://mbkm.umkendari.ac.id/images/sgacor/https://beasiswa.umkendari.ac.id/application/https://fkip.umkendari.ac.id/assets/pulsa/https://bumdesjanjimanahansil.padanglawasutarakab.go.id/Assets/https://revistas.uroosevelt.edu.pe/public/https://civitic.indoamerica.edu.ec/gates-of-olympus/https://csecity.indoamerica.edu.ec/wp-content/mahjong-ways-2/https://newmalestudies.com/OJS/starlight-princess/https://newmalestudies.com/OJS/slot-depo-10k-qris/https://alwasilahlilhasanah.ac.id/demo-olympus/https://section.iaesonline.com/slot-gacor-maxwin/