How can we make sense of the world? How do we reconcile who we are with global socio-environmental and socio-political issues? Popular culture offers us one direction, a guide towards unpacking an understanding of ourselves and for making sense of the world. In formal setting, instructional practices can support diverse perspectives, facilitating equity and inclusion (CohenMiller et al., forthcoming). As Jubas and colleagues note (2023), adult learning can be seen individually and collectively in formal and informal ways through “everyday engagement with popular culture” (p. 168).

The articles in this issue grapple with concerns that are at once very modern and as old as popular culture itself.  In previous issues of Dialogue, we have seen a depth of discussion around zombie literature and shows (e.g., Crowley, 2016; Gartley, 2018; Neely, 2014; Nuruddin, 2019; Strickland, 2019) as well as an exploration into coming of age themes (e.g., Antuna et al., 2018; Johnson-Guerrero & Combs, 2023). Yet, when we speak of zombies, coming of age, and ways of learning, we confront concepts of identity and global events. As such, in the following volume 11, issue 2 of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, “On Confronting Identity and Global Challenges through Popular Culture and Pedagogy,” we are pleased to share a robust set of works including four full length articles, two book reviews, a film review, a game review, and a Musing, unearthing a simultaneity of topics familiar yet ad examined in new ways.

Within the issue, we get a chance to explore familiar topics in new ways, seeing the continued expanding potential for teaching and learning through popular culture. These topics are treated in a way both strikingly fresh and strikingly germane to the hyper-politicized current moment. Metaphors abound, and readers will find not just messages borne of authorial intent, but also parallels to their own experience in our delicate 21^st century.

The first article of the issue begins with Nayoung Bishoff’s “Revising Paradise Lost Through K-Pop: A Global Approach to Teaching Writing.” In it, ideas of coming of age and sociopolitical tensions are explored through considering Korean youth culture. Bishoff writes that “Young students are taught to honor older people’s opinions as part of their culture,” which is certainly respectful—but that it also “lead[s] to the silencing of their new ideas or thoughts due to the cultural expectation to defer to parental or teachers’ suggestions.” Bishoff proposes that when K-Pop group BTS pushes back on these strictures through their music in film, they surmount the more-typical intimate interpersonal tension and push this ideological clash into mainstream global awareness:

Milton depicts how the lost innocence of Adam and Eve does not lead to an absolute downfall; rather, their newly obtained knowledge becomes a resource for experiencing God’s grace through the coming of the Son of God. Through this paradoxical message—growing through loss—BTS encourages youths to expand their edges by growing through the innocence of strict South Korean social norms and the competitive educational environment imposed on them by the parental and adult generations.

Readers will notice through Bishoff’s insightful work that the old and the new are indeed a bridge—a chance to move beyond a binary.

Continuing with a theme of coming of age, in the second article, “Examining Adolescence and Agency in the Midst of International Crisis: Pandemics, Pandemonium, and Zombie Young Adult Literature,” Hunter Strickland emphasizes the potential for meaning for youth in making sense of crisis. The link between the COVID-19 pandemic and zombies is sharply depicted. Strickland addresses how teachers can help their students through this natural tendency of turning to “modern tragedy lit” by working to dismantle assumptions about students, and by empathizing more with their struggles. Strickland writes:

Breaking down the stereotypes of youth is a great benefit of studying YAL at large, but one of the most important reasons for studying ZYAL during the time of the national pandemic is the overwhelming message of hope amidst struggle that so many adolescent (and adult) readers long for.

Showcasing a means for facilitating youth through struggle, Strickland offers insight through a highly sought after genre into formal and informal learning within and beyond the classroom.

Then in the third article, themes of youth continue as Jose Ardivilla discusses “Ways of Decoloniality by The Painted Lady: The Last Airbender’s Katara Demonstrates How to Revive a Community in Ecological distress Brought by the Colonial Expansion of the Fire Nation.” Ardivilla explores difficult cultural cross-sections through a deceptively accessible medium of TV cartoons. The unpacking of Avatar: The Last Airbender” and how it interfaces with analogized cultures touches on perhaps one of the show’s more sensitive story arcs: the character of Katara helping a small fishing village by assuming the personage of its people’s revered deity, the Painted Lady. In the show, this choice becomes touchy for the anticipated reasons, but it also allows viewers to get beyond their comfort zones and ask hard questions about how they think belief systems ought—and ought not—to operate. Ardivilla writes,

Katara’s experience with the Fire Nation’s atrocities [toward her own people] provides her an arsenal for decolonizing and disruption . . . In her donning The Painted Lady, she is transmuting her informed ways of defiance to suit the needs of the fishing village.

This article’s focus on decolonization through reinforcing the importance and power of Indigenous belief systems resonanates today, as cultures globally continue to face repression and colonization by domineering regimes.

Then moving into the fourth article of the issue, coming of age shifts to thinking about engaging young students in the classroom, exploring identity. Gillian Mertens and Henry “Cody” Miller offer a creative direction for how teachers and students can envision education (and educator identity) through the lens of fictional educators. The authors grapple with the problematic and all too common tendency of popular media to lionize the “white savior” as a teaching ideal. Additionally, Mertens and Miller engage with the inverse side of this focus: how pop culture too often ignores the more insidiously negative side of education, which can harm students without those students being cognizant of the process. The authors suggest, “depiction[s] of education as comprised of ‘saviors’ severely neglects the structural impacts of schooling as an institution to enact social harm.” These ideas—whether foregrounded or shrouded—have an impact on future teachers too, who can easily buy into and perpetuate the favoring of idealism over pragmatism. This becomes complicated, the authors argue, when teachers interface with students. The authors suggest, to wit: “Several students reported an affinity for experienced, calm, expert teachers.” Ultimately, and particularly in our current, fraught world, it can be easy to wish for an idealized educational space modeled on heroic fictional templates. And as Mertens and Miller remind us, mirroring these ideas in the real world is difficult.

In addition to the full length articles, this issue continues its exploration of identity and global challenges, delving into essential humanistic endeavors such as politics, gender identity, and friendship through Reviews and a Musing. In Fatima Qaraan’s review, there is a discussion of the metaphorization and global influential power of superheroes in the review of Mariano Turzi’s book The International Politics of Superheroes. Qaraan unpacks Turzi’s argument that the fictional trajectories of superheroes mimic the global movements of the real world: their changing of self and surroundings “resembles the symbolic path that present nation-states ‘seem to be undergoing.’” The second book review, by Marjana Mukherjee, shares insight around the poetry by Manjamma Jogathi and Harsha Bhat, in “From Manjunath to Manjamma: The Inspiring Life of a Transgender Folk Artist.” The “transformative power of art” is highlighted through the story of resilience, identity and growth.

Our identity development as navigated and negotiated through and with popular culture continues this issue. In “Cinema in Color,” Christina Masuda and Yih Reh offer an unique integrated review of two books, highlighting youth identity development through Giroux (2009) and the idea of “media’s powerful  powerful pedagogical force, shaping people’s understanding of the world.” The reviewed book showcase the cross-over between identity and socio-political forces, bringing together Justine Gomer’s  “White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights” and Zachary Ingle and David Suter’s “The 100 Greatest Superhero Films and TV Shows.”

The ways we interact with popular culture is epitomized by the final review of this issue, a game review by Mayank Kejriwal discussing the “immersive fantasy” of Hogwarts Legacy. Tensions abound in this review, as Kejriwal intricately details ways young growing up with Harry Potter could be drawn into the entertaining game, while facing global issues such as anti-Seminitic themes and weaponized directions.

Lastly, a common theme of this issue around confronting identity can be seen through the topic of friendship as taught within the classroom. In a Musing, David Powers Corwin, Casey Klemmer, and Julia Timpaneinvestigate the uses of friendship as a form of rhetoric. They ask their students, “‘Why do friendships matter in pursuit of social change?’” The authors’ students are guided through critical reflection, through reading classic works by Aristotle and contemporaries such as Mia Birdsong and Stephen Braden, come to see cooperation and friendship as a tool more versatile than they may have realized.

Across the articles, reviews, and Musing, the authors of these works provide novel ways to consider popular and pedagogy around themes of confronting identity and global issue through film, tv, literature, poetry, and music. Whether on a personal or global level, world dynamics remain in a state of delicate flux—and the work in this issue is a testament to how we can engage with those shifts.

We’re grateful for the robust work of the full team who makes each issue possible, to each of the peer reviewers who offered deeply considered and meaningful feedback to these works, and to each of you who engage with these works.Without these efforts, this issue would not have been possible. Thank you to Associate Editor – Karina Vado; Managing Editor – Barbara Perez; Production Editor and Creative Director – Douglas CohenMiller; Book Review Editor and Copy Editor – Miriam Sciala; Copy Editors – Robert Gordyn and Arlyze Menzies; and Reference Editors – April Manabat, Joseph Yap, and Yelizaveta Kamilova. Welcoming in a new team member, we are pleased to share our new Musings Editor – Elizabeth Gonzalez.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this newest installment of Dialogue.

Tyler Robert Sheldon
Assistant Managing Editor

Anna CohenMiller
Editor in Chief

References

Antuna, M., Harmon, J., & Henkin, R., Wood K., & Kester, K. (2018). The Stonewall Books: LGBTQ-themed young adult novels as semiotic beacons. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 5(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v5-issue-2/the-stonewall-books-lgbtq-themed-young-adult-novels-as-semiotic-beacons/

Crowley, A. (2016). The roots of authoritarianism in AMC’s The Walking Dead. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 3(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/the-roots-of-authoritarianism-in-amcs-the-walking-dead/

Gartley, E. (2018). We all have jobs here: Teaching and learning with multiple intelligences in The Walking Dead.Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 5(3) http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v5-issue-3/we-all-have-jobs-here-teaching-and-learning-with-multiple-intelligences-in-the-walking-dead/

Johnston-Guerrero, M. P., & Combs, L. D. (2023). Mixedness comes of age: Learning from multiracial portrayals in young adult TV series. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 10(1). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/mixedness-comes-of-age-learning-from-multiracial-portrayals-inyoung-adult-tv-series/

Jubas, K., Sandlin, J. A., Wright, R. R., & Burdick, J. (2023). Adult learning through everyday engagement with popular culture. In T. Rocco, M. C. Smith, R. Mizzi, L. Merriweather, J. Hawley, The Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education (pp. 168–176). Taylor and Francis.

Strickland, T. H. (2019). Zombie literature: Analyzing the fear of the unknown through popular culture. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 6(3). www.journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-3/zombie-literature-analyzing-the-fear-of-the-unknown-through-popularculture/

Neely, A. (2014). Girls, guns, and zombies: Five dimensions of teaching and learning in The Walking Dead. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2(1). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/issue-2/girls-guns-and-zombies-five-dimensions-of-teaching-and-learning-in-the-walking-dead

Nuruddin, S. M. (2019). “No te voy a dejar nunca” – Culture and Second Language Acquisition for Survival in Fear The Walking Dead. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 6(3). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v6-issue-3/no-te-voy-a-dejar-nunca-culture-and-second-language-acquisition-for-survival-in-fear-the-walking-dead/

As 2023 comes to an end, we are delighted to have celebrated 10 years of Dialogue, exploring, questioning, and promoting engaged teaching and learning in, with, and through popular culture. In this special issue, we bring together highlights from across the decade, showcasing popular culture and pedagogy across themes, and modalities, from classical interpretations to current sociocultural, environmental, and political directions. These articles, starting from 2014, offer insights into how multimedia platforms such as literature, film, and comics, provide directions for interrogating the relationship between power and popular culture, questioning the status quo, and incorporating informal and formal pedagogy within and beyond traditional educational spaces.

As we reflect on the past decade of Dialogue, we also look ahead to the future possibilities that popular culture holds for education. The journey has been marked by a dynamic interplay between traditional and contemporary perspectives, demonstrating the evolving nature of pedagogy in response to societal shifts. Looking forward, we aim to continue fostering a space where educators and learners alike can explore the intersections of popular culture and education. In the coming years, we anticipate delving deeper into emerging themes, embracing technological advancements, and further amplifying diverse voices in the discourse. The articles underscore the importance of connecting timeless and contemporary narratives to present-day concerns, whether through interpretive frameworks or contemporary retellings, to foster meaningful engagement and pedagogical exploration. As we embark on this continued exploration, we express gratitude to our contributors, readers, and the broader educational community for their unwavering support in making Dialogue a vibrant hub of innovative pedagogical discussions and transformative opportunities.

The past decade has seen a great number of excellent and timely articles come across the editors’ desks. Interpretations of pedagogy and pop culture have been varied during this time, but a consistent linkage between these articles—particularly the vibrancy of the selected work for this tenth-anniversary issue—has been the notion of communication as a form of change. From a discussion of postmodern influence and re-envisioning in Homer’s The Odyssey to a meditation on the power of books to impart lessons about social justice, to discussions of queer culture, mixtapes, and the classroom itself, Dialogue authors have demonstrated their awareness of how communication in its many forms can change both individuals and societies at large. This has held true from the earliest modes of storytelling through the permutations of written communication and into our flourishing digital age; there is real, tangible power in transmitting information. At Dialogue, we’ve been grateful to witness our readers and contributors step into their positions of communicative power, changing the lives around them for the better as they go.

Leon Trotsky argues that art, including the cultural products borne of popular culture, is not just an individual’s isolated expression of genius but arises from the interplay between an artist’s life and their environment, including the social and political contexts it emerges from. Art can be a tool through which we forge–or resist–a collective social and standpoint. Because of this, cultural products from literature to video games are mirrors that reflect back to us the naturalized values and norms of the particular social and historical contexts they emerge from. Popular culture can also reflect our dreams for the future of society. As Audre Lorde (1984) argues, poetry “forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action.” As a social and political act, art is, thus, an invaluable pedagogical tool that can make deconstructing abstract or complex political concepts more relatable and accessible. The articles highlighted in this issue demonstrate the immense potential of using popular culture as case studies through which to critically engage with broader social and political issues. These articles also show how some pop culture products can function as beacons that prompt alternate ways of thinking in the classroom.

Similarly reflecting on the potent educational possibilities of popular culture, late Black feminist scholar bell hooks argued that

whether we’re talking race, or gender, or class, popular culture is where the pedagogy is, is where the learning is.” Indeed, bell hooks stressed the primacy of popular culture as a “pedagogical medium for masses of people globally who want to, in some way, understand the politics of difference (1997)

For hooks, popular culture was (and perhaps remains) a generative site of learning and unlearning, of personal and collective transformation, one where questions of power, social identity, and (mis)representation can be engaged in complex and meaningful ways. The articles highlighted in this issue not only speak to the transformative potential bell hooks witnessed in her own experiences incorporating popular culture in the college classroom but also highlight the myriad liberatory modes of knowing and seeing that such critical engagements with popular culture invite.

Thank you for joining us throughout these last 10 years. Here’s the next years!!

Anna CohenMiller (she/ella)
Editor in Chief

Karina A. Vado (she/ella)
Associate Editor

Barbara Perez (she/ella)
Managing Editor

Tyler Sheldon (he/él)
Assistant Managing Editor

References

hooks, bell (1997). Cultural criticism & transformation. Media Education Foundation. https://www.mediaed.org/transcripts/Bell-Hooks-Transcript.pdf

Lorde, Audre. “Poetry is Not a Luxury.” In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984.

Trotsky, Leon. Art and Revolution: Writings on Literature, Politics and Culture. Pathfinder, 1992.

Why are book reviews important? What do they offer audiences? Why should we pay attention? How can they help our pedagogical and research practices?

Books offer essential insights to cultural understanding and directions for teaching and learning about ourselves, others, and the world itself. Through textbooks students learn about what counts as knowledge and what types of people embody this knowledge (see CohenMiller & Lewis, 2019; Durrani et al., 2022). Across history, governments have banned and burned books to eliminate acknowledgement and contributions of entire cultures, communities, and ways of knowing and being. The effects of such choices affect generations, teaching audiences what are accepted interpretations and “truths,” such as of gender roles, of leadership roles, and of workplace culture.

Recently, there have been strong discussions and arguments around books and education. The decisions made by elected politicians affect the use or exclusion of books in public schools funded by local governments. In Florida, for example, access to books discussing issues of social justice, gender identity, and diversity have been removed from public schools. Most recently, the Florida Department of Education has also demanded that middle school-level  African American history curriculum cover the “benefits” of slavery, a dangerous re-writing of history that erases not only the realities of enslavement in the United States but also its “afterlife,” to use Black Studies scholar Saidya Hartman’s phrasing. Still, the curricular changes being implemented in the Florida public education system are but one example of how books (and the ideas communicated by these) are being wielded to re-write the past, a re-writing largely driven by questions of power. Indeed, as Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, eerily reminds us, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Not surprisingly then, educators from primary to higher education across the US are increasingly facing challenges in selecting texts and/or discussing topics addressing equity, inclusion, and (in)justice in classrooms rendered ideological “battlegrounds. The “struggle” over what books we can read (or those that “need” to be suppressed) and which we consider “legitimate” sources of knowledge shows the very real power of books or the lack of them.

As we continue to celebrate the 10th year of Dialogue, we are offering a special issue dedicated to book reviews. While book reviews for the Journal usually are published right away for online access, over the last few months, we have been collecting the reviews for this special collection. The issue, Guest Edited by Miriam Sciala, thus focuses on recent book reviews – first seen in this special issue.

Sciala’s work over the last few years has expanded the Journal into a regular hub of insightful commentary and insights on pedagogical practice and research and ideas about books. It is our pleasure to offer this innovative approach in thinking about book reviews, to aggregate them into a collection highlighting the power and potential effect of book reviews for both formal and informal teaching and learning.

We look forward to showcasing this special issue and continuing to showcase your insightful work around popular culture and pedagogy.

Anna CohenMiller
Editor in Chief

Karina A. Vado
Managing Editor & Musings Editor

References

CohenMiller, A. & Lewis, J. (2019). Gender audit as research method for organizational learning and change in higher education. In V. Demos, M. Segal, & K. Kelly (Eds.) Gender and Practice: Insights from the Field (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 27), Emerald, pp. 39-55. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S1529-212620190000027003/full/html

Durrani, N., CohenMiller, A., Kataeva, Z., Bekzhanova, Z., Seitkhadyrova, A., & Badanova, A. (2022). “The fearful khan and the delightful beauties”: Doing gender in secondary school textbooks in Kazakhstan. International Journal of Educational Development. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059321001619

Suggested Reference Citation

APA

CohenMiller, A., & Vado, K. (2023). The Power of Books in Popular Culture and Pedagogy. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 10(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-2/the-power-of-books-in-popular-culture-and-pedagogy/

MLA

CohenMiller, Anna; Vado, Karina; and Kelli Bippert. Cultivating the Futures of Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Celebrating 10 Years of Dialogue, vol. 10, no. 2. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-2/the-power-of-books-in-popular-culture-and-pedagogy/.

Miriam Sciala
Managing Editor and Book Review Editor
Journal Dialogue
miriamsciala@gmail.com

Despite its breeziness and purely entertaining function, popular culture wields much influence as it is principally consumed by society’s most active and productive generations. Increasingly, it has come to define individual and group identities, serving to promote the inclusion or exclusion of particular social groups. This has made it crucial that it be adopted as a guide to the general perception of popular culture items in pedagogy so as to maintain more tolerant and inclusive societies.

Analyzing various forms of popular culture in the classroom enables our youth to perceive and comprehend the ways in which they contribute to or extract from a genuine understanding of our various societal groups and the nature of the relationships between them. Through such pedagogy, students learn to perceive popular culture more analytically and with a deeper understanding. Genres of popular culture now included in pedagogy vary from books, series, movies, animation, and more.

Writers who critique popular culture and analyze their creative content provide the opportunity for readers to raise their awareness of the contributions made to the world of entertainment, and from there to our society. Books on popular culture present various media and genres and probe the nature of their narratives and points of view. The books that are presented by our reviewers could be introduced into our to-be-read list and may provide the educator with additional sources and ideas to bring into their classroom.

Consequently, our special summer issue is devoted to book reviews. It features six reviews, probing a variety of books that scrutinize popular genres ranging from film, animation, science fiction, the predominance of digital technology in our lives, and fashion design. By providing us with a substantive snippet of what lies within each book, each reviewer sheds light on the content therein, providing information about the book, which is educative and whets our appetite for more, prompting one, perhaps, to consider selecting one of our featured books for future reading.

We begin this issue with Cinema in Colour, a comparative book review by Christina Masuda and Yih Ren. By reviewing, and then comparing two books, White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights by Justine Gomer and The 100 Greatest Superhero Films and TV Shows by Zachary Ingle and David M. Sutera, Cinema in Colour covers the medium of film from the two different slants featured in each respective book. Through a reading of these books, Masuda and Ren have summarized how the authors paint film and television as a form of education that can shape our ideologies and our perception of the various actors in societal and cultural phenomena. In White Balance, we are provided with an explanation of how Hollywood has been instrumental in reinforcing, and even influencing ideologies and policy, whereas with The 100 Greatest Superhero Films and TV Shows, the narrative takes us beyond the artistic characteristics of each superhero film featured in the book to the manner in which they have not only influenced society, but have also contributed to the shaping of common memories and conversations. By correlating the message of the two books, our reviewers enable the writers of both works to highlight the ability of film to create, enhance and sustain societal experiences.

Our second book review, Animation in the Middle East edited by Stefanie Van de Peer and reviewed by Jingyi Zhang, is a presentation of a historical account of the evolution of animation in particular Middle Eastern countries. Zhang synthesizes the major themes that run through the book, which hints at the importance of various societal factors on the growth and development of Middle Eastern animation. This particular review uncovers a snapshot of each country’s experience with the genre without providing any spoilers for the book’s forthcoming readers.

In The Future Is Scary at Times, Sayan Chattopadhyay reviews Ernest Cline’s science fiction novel Armadaand demonstrates how the narrative takes the reader into a future dystopian world that becomes nebulous as it blurs into escapism. Chattopadhyay also divulges how the main character provides a glimpse of a post-dystopian future, that remains as yet unclear, and hints at the fervent wish of this character to inhabit such an unpredictable and unsettling world.

How society is affected by digital technology is the theme of the following two reviews. Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities by David. B. Auerbach and A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet by E.J. White have been reviewed by Douglas MacLeod and Emily Gerace respectively. In both works, the authors explore a particular facet of digital technology available on the Internet, explaining its features and uses, as well as its impact on users. Reviewing Meganets, MacLeod raises the recurrent theme of the book: will human beings lose control of AI? and provides Auerbach’s enlightening answer to the question. The arguments submitted by Auerbach are clearly elucidated in this review with some unexpected and yet not so surprising conclusions.

In reviewing A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet, Gerace outlines the three main eras of online cat representations as delineated by White. She also provides an intriguing explanation of the way in which White brings to light the phenomenon whereby current trends of cat related postings and memes have helped enhance the reaction of online members-only groups to the mainstream, and to these group members’ view, aimless Internet posts and online social interactions, which are epitomized by cats appearing on the Internet. Through Gerace’s account of A Unified Theory of Cats on the Internet, we see a book that is devoted to an analysis that takes us beyond cute cat internet images to the social online interaction that has both created and been affected by the trolling and harmful online activities of exclusive communities.

We end our summer issue with a review by Catie-Reagan Palmore-King, who presents Pat in the City: My Life of Fashion, Style, and Breaking All the Rules by Patricia Field. Pat in the City is Field’s memoir of her life as an Emmy Award winning and Academy Award nominated fashion designer for film and her experience of the ins and outs of the genre. Palmore King’s review outlines the stages of Field’s story from her initial interest in fashion, to her insights into the costumes she has created for film, to the difficulties she experienced in the male-dominated fashion industry. Included in the review is a description of Field’s particular style of individualism, both on a personal level and as a fashion designer, as well as her offering some tips for the reader regarding the creation of one’s own style.

In reading this issue, we hope you acquire a few ideas on some of the relevant books to help you spend the rest of the summer. The books reviewed in this issue all provide an in-depth examination of popular culture creations, and for educators gearing up for the upcoming fall semester, could offer some insights on ways to approach related topics in the classroom.

Suggested Reference Citation

APA

Sciala, M. (2023). Guest Editorial – Special Review Issue, Volume 10, Issue 2. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 10(2). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-2/guest-editorial-special-review-issue-volume-10-issue-2/

MLA

Sciala, Miriam. Guest Editorial – Special Review Issue, Volume 10, Issue 2, Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2023, vol. 10, no. 2. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-2/guest-editorial-special-review-issue-volume-10-issue-2/.