Caroline Malone
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.A
cmalone1@vols.utk.edu
Felicia Rose Chavez. The Anti-racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom. Haymarket Books. 2021. 216 pgs., Hardcover $67.50
Article List | Issues
RSS feed for this sectionCultivating the Futures of Popular Culture and Pedagogy: A Celebration and Critical Examination of 10 Years of Dialogue
Popular Culture in Everyday Life
Popular culture remains one of the most important and powerful mediums to discuss, critique, and take seriously popular representations of gender, sexuality, race and the social dimensions/ideologies animating such representa tions (e.g., racism, sexism, queerphobia, classism). It intersects and weaves into our everyday lives both through formal educational spaces and within informal ways. Across numerous generations, popular culture has been an important outlet for artists and every-day people to express struggles, often related to important social issues of the day. Popular culture ranges broadly, from traditional written literature to creative endeavors expressed through music, television, film, and other forms of visual art. Popular culture and media help us express what we see as needing change in our society. We learn from those whose perspectives and lived experiences may differ from our own. We are given the opportunity to be seen through various lenses; we see others who share our pain. This takes place daily through people’s engagement with popular culture and media.
This year we begin a year-long celebration of publishing 10 years of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. In this issue, Cultivating the Futures of Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Celebrating 10 Years of Dialogue, we trace our past as well as look to the present and to the futures of popular culture and pedagogy. The articles, reviews, and Musings featured throughout our first ten years showcase new approaches and critical ways of engaging popular culture that can engender social awarenesses and material changes to help build a more equitable and inclusive world.
We celebrate the past decade of publication with Dialogue and reflect on how we may cultivate the future of the field in more robust ways. The Journal has and continues to feature early career and established scholars and practitioners whose work has advanced innovative pedagogical approaches, intellectually rigorous popular culture research, and the practical intersections of these. In particular, we have been working to cultivate Dialogue to extend discussion and scholarship of essential critical insights that speak to the ever changing nature of our world, and the challenges faced in education and in our daily lives.
Cultural Relevance of Pop Culture and Pedagogy
Over the past ten years, popular culture has increasingly been used by teachers in the K-12 classroom, as well as in higher education institutions. Popular culture and media can play an integral impact on culturally relevant pedagogies. These texts provide students a way to understand how various historical, political, and cultural events have been perceived through the eyes of the every-day people who experienced them. Forms of popular culture can be used as powerful tools to engage students in culturally relevant teaching practices, as they provide diverse lenses from which to evaluate events and issues across generations.
Challenges Faced to Culturally Relevant Practices
Culturally relevant teaching practices, however, are increasingly under fire by local and state politicians, both at the K-12 level as well as in higher education. For instance, politicians in the state of Texas (USA), have made headlines related not only to the utilization of practices that could be viewed as promoting critical race theory (CRT) and social justice, but to punish educators who endorse embracing classroom practices that would provide a voice to students from diverse cultural perspectives.
Additionally, politicians and current state office holders in the state have recently indicated a state-level push to eliminate particular politically charged topics to be addressed in public institutions (McGee, 2022; Zahneis, 2022). Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick held that those educators who teach topics related to critical race theory should be denied tenure, or have their tenure revoked, and at this time after his reelection is pushing forward with plans to implement ways to penalize institution that provide courses that address these topics (Nietzel, 2023). Additionally, the state released a list of 850 titles from children’s and young adult literature that are proposed as becoming banned, which include what would be considered politically-charged topics, including, but not limited to, issues related to Black Lives Matter, racial and cultural inequalities, and LGBTQ experiences (Chappell, 2021, Oct 28). Subsequently, many school districts in the state, and across the country, have begun to increase the number of books banned for use in their schools (Moses, 2022). The state of Florida has also made national news with their legislation targeting schools and educational practices. Called the “Stop WOKE Act,” the legislation limits the ways that race and gender can be addressed in schools and by employers (Taylor, 2022). The intent of this political movement is to put a stop to providing students with literature and course materials that these lawmakers feel would “indoctrinate” students in what they deem as inappropriate behaviors and beliefs.
Given the state and national push against topics related to critical theory and thought, educators may be experiencing new pressures related to how to choose materials for classroom instruction and how to approach topics that touch on societal issues, with a concern for how this would affect their employment in the public school system and higher education institutions.
Uncovering Needed Directions in Popular Culture and Pedagogy
Working with the Southwest Popular / American Culture Association (SWPACA), Lynnea Chapman King, Ken Dvorak, and I (Anna CohenMiller) sought to fill the gap in the field to uncover current practices, insights and needed directions to move forward at the intersection of popular culture and pedagogy. Over the years, the Journal has benefitted from the excellent work from Managing Editors including Kurt Depner, Kelli Bippert, Kirk Peterson, and Karina Vado.
For example, from the very first issue, the editorial team has welcomed special issues addressing thought-provoking topics, such as Kristen Day’s and Benjamin Haller’s, Classics and Contemporary Pop Culture. More recently, unique special issues have been led by Kathryn “Kate” Lane and Roxie Jame’s around the topic of Criminal as Heroes: Problems and Pedagogy in Popular Culture, and Timothy Ray and Julie DeLong’s double issue: Teaching and Learning with the Grateful Dead. For this year, we are pleased to announce a special issue call for papers led by Robert Vest and Roxie James titled, Unreliable Me: Constructing and Inventing the Self (see the end of this issue for details on the special call for papers).
During our first ten years, scholars and practitioners have shared about a range of innovative approaches and ideas around pedagogy and popular culture. For example, audiences have learned about the pedagogical dimensions of postapocalyptic fiction in “Girls, Guns, and Zombies: Five Dimensions of Teaching and Learning in The Walking Dead” and the generative intersections of media literacy and queer pedagogy in “I am a Conversation”: Media Literacy, Queer Pedagogy, and Steven Universe in College Curriculum.” Practitioners have also been challenged to consider the politics of representation in popular culture, and in curricular and syllabi design. Researchers have, moreover, been offered examples for studying popular culture within their own classrooms as well as ways to unpack readings, music, poetry, tv, and film, in articles such as “Visuality of Race in Popular Culture: Teaching Racial Histories and Iconography in Media,” “Don’t Sweat the Technique: Rhetoric, Coded Social Critique, and Conspiracy Theories in Hip-Hop,” “Crossing Over: The Migrant ‘Other’ in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” and “Afrosurrealism, Aristotle, and Racial Presence in Netflix’s Luke Cage.”
Furthermore, recent studies and explorations in popular culture and pedagogy are speaking to key social issues. For instance, a study was conducted in Fall 2022 exploring the decision-making factors that instructors perceived as influencing their ability to teach in their disciplines, both in the K-12 setting and higher education (Bippert, 2023). The participants were students who had been teaching at the K-12 level or in a higher education setting. As a culminating project, students were required to present a critical theory through popular media, which included music, videos, films, and visual art from popular culture. Based on the students’ interactions through weekly reflections, studying critical theory relevant to teaching assignments, tentative findings indicate that while there does appear to be substantial pressure to move away from utilizing culturally relevant pedagogies, the students indicated that their experiences with students and as educators have shaped their understanding of students’ needs, suggesting a willingness to support students’ identities and including their voices through literature and discussion in the classroom through culturally relevant practices, regardless of outside pressures and influences.
One way we are extending our emphasis on critical approaches is through a new section of the Journal – reviews focusing on critical media literacy within children’s media. Moreover, we have been asking ourselves and colleagues questions to consider the future of the field. As the official journal of the Southwest Popular / American Culture Society, we reached out to the Chairs of the conference study areas to get their insights. The following are a few responses:
| I last taught in the Fall of 2021, and the course topic (Contemporary Horror Film) seemed darkly appropriate for what we had all just lived through. What was exciting to me as a teacher was to watch my students rise to the challenge when I asked more of them in terms of their contributions to class via group exercises. Their skills may have been rusty, but they were eager. It reminded me of how much students of popular culture have to offer in terms of analysis and curation. Pop culture content continues to increase and push the boundaries of what defines pop culture, and it was exciting to see how the students were responding to it and how they were evaluating it.
— Dr. Alison Macor We need story more than ever, for its capacity to teach empathy, and popular culture in all its forms provides story in ways that hook students into thinking about how we understand what it means to be human. We can use any stories for this kind of work, but popular culture has two primary advantages in the classroom: first, because diverse voices are more easily found there, and second, because it shows students that the process of constructing culture is ongoing and that we need to think critically about the shape our culture has taken and will take in the future. This relevance helps engage our students and might light the way for taking our work outside the academy to make change, whether through direct action or through our students’ lives. — Dr. Lexey Bartlett Among the ways popular culture scholars can reach larger audiences within and outside of the academy is through public-facing and applied work. Collaborating with and in service to the community creates opportunities for public enrichment and the tangible improvement of the human condition. — Dr. Judd Ruggill I’m hopeful that the future of pop culture and pedagogy will include ever more engagement with environmental issues on a global and local scale. I teach eco-composition at a two-year branch of the University of New Mexico, and my students are deeply affected by the creative nonfiction and popular science we read about topics such as extinction, climate change, extinction of local species once used by Indigenous people, and the ways that human thinking about animals shapes our interactions with them. And this is only one small corner of popular culture; cli-fi, animals and plants and settings in film and literature and video games, and the prevalence of anthropocentrism and the Anthropocene in all genres provide fertile ground for promoting students’ critical thinking and future paths. I am excited to see how writers and thinkers will explore them in our increasingly endangered world. — Dr. Keri Stevenon I hope it [studies of pop culture] continues to lead us into all spaces of society. Popular culture is such a great mirror of society; it shows us what’s there but also reminds us to think about what’s missing. We can then take that same attitude into the classroom and tackle all sort of important, and entertaining, social issues while always asking “why?”, “why not?”, and “who’s voices are missing?” I think something cool to think about is how popular culture, and our conference, will engage with virtual reality in the near future. — Dr. Robert Tinajero Chairing an area of the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association for more than a decade provides a snapshot of larger currents in the study of popular culture. The Grateful Dead area has embraced an interdisciplinary approach that has been remarkably successful, suggesting that popular culture studies work best when scholars work across disciplinary divides to interrogate a subject collectively, without hierarchy. Interestingly, that democratic view of diverse perspectives working together on a single phenomenon also promotes rigor, and highlights the need to ensure that popular culture studies continue to claim mainstream academic status. While that can create friction between scholars and fans, it can also ensure that scholars try to reach non-academic audiences with their work, and help fans better appreciate the ambition and relevance of their interests. Those themes were reflected, both implicitly and explicitly, in the Dialogue issue devoted to pedagogy and the Grateful Dead, which made a welcome and useful summary of much of the area’s work, now spanning more than 25 years. — Nicholas G. Meriwether |
Cultivating the Futures Starting Now
As a tribute to the past, present and future of the journal and the field, Lynnea Chapman King has written a special invited editorial. The pieces we have gathered in this issue draw attention to the importance of teaching popular culture in a way that speaks to the layeredness and complexities of human experience, especially in the midst of, as Bippert reminds us in her beautifully written and timely editorial, a moment of heightened anti-intellectualism and concerted efforts to stifle freedom of expression (esp. intellectual freedom) in academic institutions (be it K-12 or colleges/universities).
Within this issue, we highlight cutting-edge critical pedagogical perspectives within two articles, a Musing, and two book reviews. The first article, “Mixedness Comes of Age: Learning from Multiracial Portrayals in Young Adult TV Series,” critically examines portrayal of racial mixedness in television series such as Charmed and Dear White People. By interrogating (oft-times reductive) common tropes of racial mixedness that appear across popular media, Marc P. Johnston-Guerrero and Lisa Delacruz Combs “illuminate the need for more deliberate considerations when constructing mixed race characters on TV so that their portrayals reach the full potential of multiracial representation.” At the same time, Johnston-Guerrero and Delacruz Combs offer useful recommendations for furthering multiracial literacy by integrating, for instance, more expansive media portrayals of young multiracial people in the college classroom.
The second article, “The Rhetorical Interlude in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity: Suggesting a Model for Examining Rhetorical Discourse in Film,” advances the concept of “rhetorical interlude,” a mode of textual interpretation, through a critical reading of Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s sci-fi thriller, Gravity. Here, Brent Yergensen and Scott Church argue that the “film offers a practical and understandable answer to scientific complexity, enhancing the film’s themes of humanity conquering mortality and the unknown through vernacular simplicity.” As such, Yergensen and Church reveal that this “method of uncovering the persuasive potential of cinematic speech is an excellent pedagogical tool for students to learn about rhetoric.”
We end this issue with an important and timely critical musing penned by Travis D. Boyce and Michelle Tran titled “‘For Me, That Future is Jackson State University’: Travis Hunter’s National Signing Ceremony as a Symbol of Critical Pedagogy for Black Youth Resistance” and book reviews of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom by Felicia Rose Chavez, and Digital Madness: New Social Media is Driving Our Mental Health – and How to Restore Our Sanity by Nicholas Kardaras, written by Caroline Malone and Douglas C. MacLeod respectively.
As always, we would like to thank our dedicated editorial team, peer reviewers, authors and readers. Thank you to Arlyce Menzies and Robert Gordyn as Copy Editors and Miriam Sciala as Copy Editor and Book Review Editor; April Manabat, Joseph Yap, and Yelizaveta Kamilova as Reference Editors; and to Douglas CohenMiller as Production Editor and Creative Director. We are welcoming to the team this year, Roxanne Henkin into the new role of Children’s Critical Media Literacy Editor, who will be calling for reviews for children’s books, audio, and other media.
As we reflect on the past, present and future of popular culture, we are pushed to consider the important points raised by scholars and practitioners. How far can anti-critical thought legislation related to in-school and academic practices really reach? Popular culture is everywhere, often pushing back against the dominant culture and giving a voice to the marginalized. The push against critical race theory, critical thought, and topics that some have deemed dangerous for our youth is nothing new. Artists need to keep creating, keep striding forward, and keep fighting to be heard. Two steps forward, and one step back; society will move forward, as it has in the past, to provide a voice for all. Popular culture will remain at the front line, pushing forward as it has for generations past.
Considering these pressing challenges in our world and practice, we would love to hear your ideas and what is important to consider as we move forward in the field. Here are a few prompts to get you started:
- Whose voices, issues, and/or topics are missing, invisibilized, and/or misheard?
- What topics are still needed in the scholarship?
- Where do we hope the future of popular culture and pedagogy will lead us?
- How might we reach audiences, and ideas in ways to engage more deeply within and beyond the classroom and academy?
- What do you hope the future of popular culture and pedagogy lead to, include, address?
We will be publishing select insights throughout the year. You can email a few sentences to us at editors@journaldialogue.orgwith the subject line: “Critical futures of popular culture and pedagogy.”
It has been an incredible journey over these last 10 years working with you all to move the field of popular culture and pedagogy forward. We look forward to cultivating the next 10 years with your insights, innovations and scholarship!
Anna CohenMiller
Editor in Chief
Karina Vado
Managing Editor and Musings Editor
Kelli Bippert
Managing Editor from Spring 2019 to Fall 2020
Associate Professor – Texas A&M University- Corpus Christi
References
Bippert, K. (2023, April 5-8). The Politics of Teaching: How Popular Culture Reflects Critical Thought. Popular Culture Association 2023 National Conference, San Antonio, TX.
Chappell, B. (2021, Oct 28). A Texas lawmaker is targeting 850 books that he says could make students feel uneasy. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1050013664/texas-lawmaker-matt-krause-launches-inquiry-into-850-books
McGee, K. (2022, Feb 18). Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick proposes ending university tenure to combat critical race theory teaching. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/02/18/dan-patrick-texas-tenure-critical-race-theory/
Moses, C. (2022, Jul 31). The spread of book banning: Explaining the increasing politicization of the book banning debate. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/31/briefing/book-banning-debate.html
Suggested Reference Citation
APA
CohenMiller, A., Vado, K., & Bippert, K. (2023). Cultivating the futures of popular culture and pedagogy: Celebrating 10 years of Dialogue. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 10(1). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-1/cultivating-the-futures-of-popular-culture-and-pedagogy-a-celebration-and-critical-examination-of-10-years-of-dialogue/
MLA
CohenMiller, Anna; Vado, Karina; and Kelli Bippert. Cultivating the Futures of Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Celebrating 10 Years of Dialogue, vol. 10, no. 1. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-1/cultivating-the-futures-of-popular-culture-and-pedagogy-a-celebration-and-critical-examination-of-10-years-of-dialogue/.
Download as PDFBook Reviews: The Benefits of Book Reviews and a Note from the Book Review Editor
Editor: Miriam Sciala
Call for Reviews
In Dialogue, The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, book reviews play a crucial part in the introduction to the public of newly-written books that provide analyses of popular culture and the way it reflects current social conditions. These publications can serve to educate not only the general reader, but also researchers and educators. Indeed, by providing insight into a particular book that goes beyond what the title – be it catchy or not – provides, the reviewer lays out the main components of a book to the potential reader and can be instrumental in convincing that reader to choose that particular book for a future read.
Hence, by describing the main gist and viewpoint on a book of popular culture for our journal, which caters to social scientists/researchers and educators, the reviewer is placed in a position whereby they can reach out to our readers and pique their interest in a book that is pertinent to their interests. For instance, an educator reading one of these books may be induced to translate the knowledge gained from the book into practical methodologies that can be applied to their pedagogy. Ultimately, this will help them guide students towards more salubrious perceptions of social issues and a deeper understanding of the various existences among various social groups, thus engendering a kinder and more tolerant society.
Academics involved in the social sciences also appreciate reading our book reviews as they search for sources to support and enhance their own research. A book review could help them save time as they can then more rapidly decide whether the book in question is suitable for their endeavours in explaining the way popular culture reflects our society.
Writing a review of one of the books on our list would be beneficial to our readers. By helping them to ascertain the genre of popular culture under discussion and the angle in which the information is presented, the reviewer places the readers in a position whereby they can better judge whether reading the entire book would be beneficial to them and whether it could lead to potential applications within their respective fields.
The books on this list have a focus on a specific genre of popular culture, be it fiction, film, television, music, video games or technology. They have been written with the aim of helping the reader understand popular culture and its assistance and limitations towards the generation of a deeper comprehension of society. If you are interested in reviewing one of these books, we invite you to contact us letting us know which book you would like to review. We look forward to collaborating with you.
A note from the Book Review Editor – Miriam Sciala
For me as a reader, or more specifically, as a bookworm from a very early age, book reviews open up possibilities as they guide me to the next set of books on my lengthy “to be read” list. Realistically, though, despite the best of intentions, I never will read all the books on that ever-expanding list as life is much too fleeting. Therefore, for all those that will remain unread, book reviews serve a different purpose – that of providing a synopsis – a brief description that offers me a view of the author’s stance, the context within which the book was written and a few choice details that enable me to gain a sense of the subject matter; in truth, it is a condensed account that nonetheless provides some information, opening a window into the narrative. In fact, a perspicacious review on its own can provide me with a few precious moments of reading pleasure. And after turning that page, I will have gained knowledge and the possibility of applying it in my work.
The act of writing a book review, in my experience, is extremely rewarding, too. This type of writing has done more than afford me the opportunity to read a particular book; it has engendered a perusal with intent – a deeper reading than that done merely for pleasure. Book reviews are my mini-research projects where I approach the book from the angle of the chronicler who endeavours to comprehend and explain the content and point of view of that book, connecting these to the context in which it was written. It is an exercise in objectivity to outline the strengths and limitations that form the features of the book. Penning a book review for the reader activates my creative side as I communicate the salient information appearing in the book to an imaginary fellow reader, albeit without giving too much away, in an attempt to prompt that reader to pick that book up and experience it through their own eyes.
Call for Book Reviews
Dialogue would like to invite experienced academics to review new books for our readers. We are currently seeking reviews of the following books:
-
-
- Allen, Craig. Univision, Telemundo, and the Rise of Spanish-Language Television in the United States. University of Florida Press. 2020.
- Allen, Paul V. I Can Read It All by Myself: The Beginner Books Story. University Press of Mississippi. 2021.
- Bordwell, David. Perplexing Plots: Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder. Columbia University Press. 2023.
- Dorney, John; Regan, Jessica; and Salinsky, Tom. Best Pick a Journey through Film History. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2022.
- Frymus, Agatha. Damsels and Divas: European Stardom in Silent Hollywood. Rutgers University Press. 2020.
- Giannini, Erin. Supernatural: A History of Television’s Unearthly Road Trip. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2021.
- Gomer, Justin. White Balance: How Hollywood Shaped Colorblind Ideology and Undermined Civil Rights. The University of North Carolina Press. 2020.
- Gonzalez, Aston. Visualizing Equality: African American Rights and Visual Culture in the Nineteenth Century. The University of North Carolina Press. 2020.
- Mahdi, Waleed F. Arab Americans in Film: From Hollywood and Egyptian Stereotypes to Self-Representation.Syracuse University Press. 2020.
- Manno, Andrew. Toxic Masculinity, Casino Capitalism, and America’s Favorite Card Game: The Poker Mindset.Palgrave Macmillan. 2020.
- Mitchell, James G. Watching in Tongues: Multilingualism on American Television in the 21st Century. Vernon Press. 2020.
- Turzi, Mariano. The International Politics of Superheroes. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2022
-
Guidelines: short articles reviewing books, films, games, conferences, etc. as they relate to popular culture and pedagogy
-
-
- Format: MLA or APA
- Length: 1,200 – 1,800 (inclusive of endnotes and citations)
- Editorial review
- To be considered for online publication on a rolling basis
-
Contact editors@journaldialogue.org or miriamsciala@gmail.com to coordinate writing a review for the journal.
Published online February 2023
Children’s Critical Media Literacy
Editor: Roxanne Henkin
Call for Reviews
“For Me, That Future is Jackson State University”: Travis Hunter’s National Signing Ceremony as a Symbol of Critical Pedagogy for Black Youth Resistance
Travis D. Boyce
San Jose State University
San Jose State University, San Jose, California, USA
Travis.Boyce@sjsu.edu
Michelle Tran
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
Tran193@purdue.edu
Keywords: Travis Hunter, National Signing Day, Black youth, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, college football, Jackson State University
The Rhetorical Interlude in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity: Suggesting a Model for Examining Rhetorical Discourse in Film
Brent Yergensen
The University of Texas at Tyler
Tyler, Texas, USA
byergensen@uttyler.edu
Scott Church
Brigham Young University
Provo, Utah, USA
scott_church@byu.edu
Abstract
This essay advances the concept of the “rhetorical interlude,” a means by which scholars and teachers may examine how rhetorical messages are embedded in films. To illustrate, this study includes an examination of the rhetorical interlude in the 2013 film Gravity (Cuarón, 2013) as the film’s protagonist, Ryan Stone, is visited by the apparition of her dead colleague, Matt Kowalski, who instructs her on survival in space and on the significance of moving on from personal tragedy. In a pattern of ghostly apparitions appearing in perplexing outer space situations, Gravity situates scientific complexity as capable of being transcended with the help of supernatural assistance. We examine the rhetorical purpose of the climactic speech in the film, which is a vernacular reframing of scientific complexity in order to make abstract concepts more accessible. We argue that the film offers a practical and understandable answer to scientific complexity, enhancing the film’s themes of humanity conquering mortality and the unknown through vernacular simplicity. Finally, we conclude that this method of uncovering the persuasive potential of cinematic speech is an excellent pedagogical tool for higher education teacher-scholars and their students to learn about rhetoric.
Keywords: Science fiction, Gravity, film, oratory, ghosts, speech
Author Bios
Brent Yergensen (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Communication at The University of Texas at Tyler. His research focuses primarily on the rhetoric of film and popular culture, and is published in Journal of Visual Political Communication, Explorations in Media Ecology, Journal of Religion, Film & Media, Popular Culture Studies Journal, Studies in Popular Culture, Journal of Religion & Society, and other scholarly journals and book anthologies.
Scott Haden Church (Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is an Associate Professor in the School of Communications at Brigham Young University. His research primarily uses critical methods to examine popular culture and social media. His research has been published recently in Journal of Media and Religion, Explorations in Media Ecology, Public Relations Review, and Critical Studies in Media Communication.
Suggested Reference Citation
APA
Yergensen, B, & Church, S. H. (2023). The rhetorical interlude in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity: Suggesting a model for examining rhetorical discourse in film.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 10(1). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-1/the-rhetorical-interlude-in-alfonso-cuarons-gravity-suggesting-a-model-for-examining-rhetorical-discourse-in-film/
MLA
Yergensen, Brent, and Scott Haden Church. “The Rhetorical Interlude in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity: Suggesting a Model for Examining Rhetorical Discourse in Film.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. 2023, vol 10, no. 1, http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v10-issue-1/the-rhetorical-interlude-in-alfonso-cuarons-gravity-suggesting-a-model-for-examining-rhetorical-discourse-in-film/
Embracing the Fiasco!: Roleplaying Games, Pedagogy and Student Success
Erik Stanley
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico, USA
Erik.Stanley@enmu.edu
David Sweeten
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico, USA
David.Sweeten@enmu.edu
Michelle Schmidt
Eastern New Mexico University
Portales, New Mexico, USA
Michelle.Schmidt1@enmu.edu
Abstract
This article explores the relationship between games and pedagogy through the example of the roleplaying game Fiasco!. Fiasco! is a part of a growing genre of collaborative roleplaying games (RPGs) that have important applications in the university classroom. Fiasco! is an innovative game system that upends the traditional model of Game Master-led RPGs to create a collaborative environment for players to create their own stories. This paper explores how the unique model embedded within Fiasco! can be employed as a pedagogical tool for active student-led learning.
To showcase the pedagogical innovations of a game like Fiasco!, we present classroom applications in English, Anthropology, and Sociology. Our experiences teaching with Fiasco! show how quickly and intuitively the game can be integrated into curricula with significant benefits for student engagement and learning. Roleplaying games that emphasize player agency, like Fiasco!, offer adaptive and innovative strategies for student-led learning in an interdisciplinary setting. Much as the structure of Fiasco! drives player engagement by making each player an equal participant in the generation of narrative content, using Fiasco! in the classroom allows each student an equal stake in developing course material. Beyond individual case studies, this article offers pedagogical inspiration for using Fiasco! in a variety of classroom settings that offer the possibility of an adaptive and interdisciplinary approach to student engagement.
Keywords: Active Learning, Gamification, Student Centered Education, Teaching Strategies, Interdisciplinary, Roleplaying Games, Flipped Classroom Introduction
Author Bios
Dr. Erik Stanley is an Assistant Professor of cultural anthropology at Eastern New Mexico University. He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2015. His theoretical research interests in socio-cultural anthropology include pedagogy and popular culture, digital humanities, museum studies and student engagement, anthropology of science fiction/fantasy, human-environmental relations and the anthropology of religion. His ethnographic research focuses on the Mopan Maya of Belize, C.A. and is concerned with the transformation of cacao (Theobroma cacao) from a ritually and culturally important plant to a global commodity. His publications include the article Monilia ( Moniliophtora roreri ) and the Post-Development of Belizean Cacao in the journal Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment as well as Religious Conversion and the Decline of Environmental Ritual Narratives in the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture. For more information on his research, please visit https://enmu.academia.edu/ErikStanley
David Sweeten is an Assistant Professor of Early British Literature at Eastern New Mexico University whose primary scholarly work focuses on the intersections of economic thought, marriage, and gender in Middle English texts, including a chapter on inter-reliant economies and social capital in Wynnere and Wastoure, entries on wealth and money in The Chaucer Encyclopedia, and a larger book project on the economics of marriage, gender, and agency in late Middle English literature. In addition to his work in medieval literature, David Sweeten has also taught courses on fantasy fiction, comics, composition pedagogy theory, and critical theory. Each semester, his composition courses heavily focus on fandom, popular culture, and gaming to reach students where they are and develop stronger critical analysis, research, and writing skills. More information can be found at: https://enmu.academia.edu/DavidSweeten
Michelle Schmidt is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Eastern New Mexico University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2018. Her research interests include popular culture as pedagogy, community and environmental health, and transnational economic development. Her pedagogical research focuses on the implementation of active learning strategies in the classroom. She presents annually at the Southwest Popular/American Culture conference on using popular culture, media, and games to teach sociological theory. Her ethnographic research in Belize, C.A. focuses on the intersection of modernization with Indigenous agriculture, food, and health systems. She has an article in Agriculture and Human Values entitled Cultivating Health: Diabetes resilience through neo-traditional farming in Mopan Maya communities of Belize and a chapter Commodification and Respect: Indigenous contributions to the sociology of waste in The Handbook of Waste Studies. More information can be found at: https://enmu.academia.edu/MichelleSchmidt
Suggested Citation
APA:
Stanley, E., Sweeten, D., & Schmidt, E. (2022). Embracing the Fiasco!: Roleplaying games, pedagogy and student success. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 9(4). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/embracing-the-fiasco-roleplaying-games-pedagogy-and-student-success/
MLA:
Stanley, Erik, David Sweeten and Michelle Schmidt. “Embracing the Fiasco!: Roleplaying Games, Pedagogy and Student Success”. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 9, no. 4, 2022. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/embracing-the-fiasco-roleplaying-games-pedagogy-and-student-success/
“It’s Not My Immediate Instinct”: Perceptions of Preservice Teachers on the Integration of Popular Culture
Melinda S. Butler
University of Southern Maine
melinda.butler@maine.edu
Nadine Bravo
University of Southern Maine
nadine.bravo@maine.edu
Eva S. Arbor
University of Southern Maine
eva.arbor@maine.edu
Abstract
Popular culture curricula integration provides educational benefits for students (Morrell, 2002; Petrone, 2013); bridging students’ out-of-school popular culture knowledge with their in-school literacies promotes learning, engages students, and values students’ background knowledge (Dyson, 1993, 2021; Marsh, 2006; Morrell, 2002; Petrone, 2013). Therefore, teacher educators may consider the addition of popular culture education into preservice teacher’s preparation for teaching (Petrone, 2013). In this qualitative study, researchers were interested in asking the following questions: What popular culture texts did preservice teachers consume as children and adults? and How does preservice teachers’ previous popular culture text consumption factor into decisions to include or exclude popular culture texts in the curriculum? Preservice teachers in a graduate teacher education program participated in surveys and interviews about their popular culture text consumption (e.g., podcasts, television shows) as children and adults. Additionally, participants were questioned about the affordances and constraints of integrating popular culture texts into the curriculum. Data were coded using In Vivo coding (Saldańa, 2013), and analyzed through a sociocultural lens (Vygotsky, 1978). Themes that were generated from the findings were: 1) popular culture text consumption as both social and shared; 2) popular culture text integration as a way to entice and engage students in learning; 3) popular culture texts as engaging and relatable; 4) popular culture as digital texts; and 5) popular culture texts as unknown or unimportant. Although all participants spoke about the benefits of popular culture text integration, the preservice teachers who consumed more of them as children and adults spoke more favorably about including popular culture texts in curricula.
Keywords: Literacy/reading; preservice teacher education; qualitative research; popular culture
Author Bios
Melinda S. Butler, Ed.D, is an assistant professor of literacy in the Department of Literacy, Language, and Culture at the University of Southern Maine and the Director of the USM Summer Reading and Writing Workshop. Her research interests include popular culture texts, student access to texts, literacy clinics, and independent reading.
Nadine Bravo is a multilingual and multicultural second-year graduate student at the University of Southern Maine, pursuing two M.Ed. (ETEP and TESOL) and a Graduate Studies Certificate in Native American Studies at Montana State University. Her research interests revolve around the literacy of Native American English Language Learners.
Eva Arbor is finishing up her Master’s in Policy, Planning, and Management with the University of Southern Maine in hopes of one day opening a non-profit in Bangor, Maine, where she is originally from. Her interests are centered around advocacy, family planning, and access to mental health resources for marginalized individuals.
Suggested Citation
APA:
Butler, M.S., Bravo. N., & Arbor E.S. (2022). “It’s not my immediate instinct”: Perceptions of pre-service teachers on the integration of popular culture. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 9(4), http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/its-not-my-immediate-instinct-perceptions-of-preservice-teachers-on-the-integration-of-popular-culture/
MLA:
Butler, Melinda, et al. ““It’s not my immediate instinct”: Perceptions of pre-service teachers on the integration of popular culture.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 9, no. 4, http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/its-not-my-immediate-instinct-perceptions-of-preservice-teachers-on-the-integration-of-popular-culture/
Tackling History in the Cultural Studies Seminar
Becca Cragin
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, Ohio, USA
bcragin@bgsu.edu
Abstract
While cultural theory developed in past eras was often marred by the biases of its privileged authors, we are still often required to teach the canon, so that graduate students can recognize past intellectual trends to which current critiques of the canon respond. In this article, a “History of Feminist Theory” course is employed as an example of larger principles of foundations course design that can be used in any cultural studies seminar to productively address the tension between old and new schools of thought. It provides suggestions for structuring syllabi and discussions in ways that productively engage with earlier texts, yet without reinforcing their canonicity. The author suggests that viewing “classics” through a comparative and predominantly historical lens can allow teachers to address current cultural issues such as the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements via the use of older texts, constructively balancing the need to identify their oversights with the need to learn the history of a particular field. Students usually wish to analyze the popular culture of the present, sometimes resenting being obliged to take historical/foundational courses. However, these are courses we are often required to teach. The tension between obligations and interests can either derail a grad seminar or be harnessed constructively to help students critique the cultural studies canon more effectively.
Keywords: History, Foundations, Theory, Pedagogy, Canon, Classics
Author Bio
Becca Cragin is an Associate Professor of Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She received her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from Emory University in 2002 and her B.A. in Sociology/Anthropology from Swarthmore College in 1992. Her research and teaching interests include gender and sexuality in television and film, in comedy and crime genres.
Suggested Citation
APA
Cragin, Becca. “Tackling History in the Cultural Studies Seminar.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/tackling-history-in-the-cultural-studies-seminar/
MLA
Cragin, B. (2022). Tackling History in the Cultural Studies Seminar. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/tackling-history-in-the-cultural-studies-seminar/
Provoking Awareness and Practical Applications in Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Syllabi, Games, and Teaching in Higher Education
Recognizing how we absorb ourselves with popular culture offers potential for learning more about ourselves and enhancing teaching and learning. Yet seeing our practices can require purposeful effort. Over time, scholars and advocates have promoted increasing our awareness of the popular culture we consume and what influences, ideas, and values are produced and reproduced. For example, to unpack gender in media, the Bechdel-Wallace Test is an exemplar of raising awareness of women’s presence (or lack thereof) (Hooton, 2015). The test asks audiences to consider: if there are any women in the narrative, if the women have names, and if the women talk to each other about something other than a man. Through a simple analysis, viewers are prompted to engage in a simple critical reflection of the work.
A simple analysis of the presence of women in media echo organizational and governmental work through gender audits and gender mainstreaming. Such work aims to unpack how gender is represented and ways to embed considerations of gender from the onset of teaching, learning, research and other work. Looking into curriculum for instance, a gender audit can be a simple tool to review the authorship of assigned readings. How many are authored by a certain gender? Who is missing in the authorship? And what does the potential emphasis on one gender say about the production of knowledge? Often the result in assigned readings in curriculum showcase an emphasis on male thought and authorship, suggesting men own knowledge (CohenMiller & Lewis, 2019; Lewis & CohenMiller, 2022).
We are pleased to announce our fall issue, “Provoking Awareness and Practical Applications in Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Syllabi, Games, and Teaching in Higher Education” of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy. With a special double issue in February, this issue marks a unique fourth issue of the year. In the first article of this issue, Becca Craigin emphasizes the importance of syllabi and what they evoke and suggest to learners. Cragin describes how she works with students to engage them and lead to generation of ideas through studying the historical canon of feminist theory. She further notes how the prejudices of the past can be implicated in today’s teaching and learning if not carefully unpacked and addressed.Ultimately, Cragin guides readers through the importance of syllabus development and the ways in which our choices are “building cultural theory today.”
Framing a class with a syllabus offers an essential path towards teaching and learning. Likewise, understanding examples of classroom practice suggest insights for pedagogical practice. In our second article of the issue, Erik Stanley, David Sweeten, and Michelle Schmidtunpacks how games can be embedded within the formal classroom. Drawing from experiences of using one game, Fiasco!, they explain the utility of its application across disciplinary fields of English, anthropology and sociology.
Just as we can consider how gender is represented in popular culture and pedagogy, we can also work to increase our understanding of the intersectional nature of our lives. The ways we enter the world and the way others see us often intersect with our perceived ethnicity, region of world, socioeconomic status and class/caste/tribe, gender identity and presentation. These topics reflect our cultural and historical context.
In the third article of this issue, Melinda Butler, Nadine Bravo, and Eva Arbor explain in their article, “It’s Not My Immediate Instinct”: Perceptions of Pre-service Teachers on the Integration of Popular Culture,” how sociocultural theory can help explain how our backgrounds influence our today. Specifically, the researchers examine preservice teachers’ consumption of popular culture and how their unique experiences with popular culture (or lack thereof) may color their openness to and/or hesitation over integrating popular culture texts into their curriculum. Butler et. al., in turn, observe five key themes that emerge across their interviews with pre-service teachers as related to questions of the incorporation of popular culture in the classroom: 1) Popular culture as social and sharing; 2) Popular culture as a way to hook kids; 3) Popular culture integration and engaging and relatable; 4) Popular culture as digital texts; and 5) Popular culture as unknown and unimportant. Through a robust exploration of these themes, Butler et. al. reveal the invaluable benefits of integrating popular culture in the classroom. Further, they offer suggestions on how to encourage the active and intentional use of poplar culture texts on the part of teachers and how this incorporation can lead to a more generative and “permeable” curriculum.
In addition to the three robust articles in this issue, this issue also includes connections to a recent online publication of Tyler Sheldon’s Review of The Missing Course: Everything They Never Taught You About College Teaching, by David Gooblar. Sheldon emphasizes Gooblar’s points about the critical need for drawing in students through active learning especially in extracurricular learning.
Overall, the scholarship offered in volume 9, issue 4,Provoking awareness and Practical Applications in Popular Culture and Pedagogy: Syllabi, Games, and Teaching in Higher Education, speaks to “diversifying the narrative” (Cragin, this issue) about popular culture and pedagogy. Ultimately, we can work and learn from one another about consciously increasing our awareness and practices for enhancing research and teaching and learning.
We want to thank the incredible team of collaborators including the authors featured in the issue and willing peer-reviewers who made the scholarship possible, insightful Copy Editors (Arlyze Menzies, Miriam Sciala, and Robert Gordyn), Reference Editors (Joseph Yap, Yelizaveta Kamilova, and April Manabat) and Production Editor and Creative Director (Douglas CohenMiller). In reading the articles and Book Review in this issue, we hope you are engaged to consider and actively take steps to provoke new thinking and practice in teaching and learning in popular culture and pedagogy.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this issue and look forward to your submissions for future issues as we move into our 10th year in 2023!
Happy reading!
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
Hooton, C. (2015). Please stop calling it the Bechdel Test says Alison Bechdel. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/please-stop-calling-it-the-bechdel-test-says-alison-bechdel-10474730.html
Lewis, J., & CohenMiller, A. (2022). Gender audit as pedagogical tool. In Kitchener, M. (Ed). Handbook for the Promotion of Gender Sensitive Curriculum: Teaching and Learning Strategies. Available from: https://www.brookes.ac.uk/ocsld/publications/.
Suggested Reference Citation
APA
CohenMiller, A., & Vado, K. (2022). Syllabi, games, and teaching in higher education: Provoking awareness and practical applications in popular culture and pedagogy. Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, 9(4). http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/provoking-awareness-and-practical-applications-in-popular-culture-and-pedagogy-syllabi-games-and-teaching-in-higher-education/
MLA
CohenMiller, Anna, and Karina Vado. “Syllabi, Games, and Teaching in Higher Education: Provoking Awareness and Practical Applications in Popular Culture and Pedagogy.” Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, vol. 9, no. 4, 2022. http://journaldialogue.org/issues/v9-issue-4/provoking-awareness-and-practical-applications-in-popular-culture-and-pedagogy-syllabi-games-and-teaching-in-higher-education/
Academia.edu