New Books in Popular Culture

[Cross-posted from New Books in Food] Something nice and filling for you here! Laura Silver's book Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food (Brandeis University Press, 2014) concerns itself not only with the round — or is it square? — savory pastry brought to America from somewhere in Europe to fill the working bellies of not well-to-do immigrants. The tale of the knish is a way to tell the story of where an ethnic group has been, where they think they are, and where they might be going. A free-ranging talk between Lower East Side resident Allen Salkin and the author, with stops along the way for smoked fish, hot dogs and pasta.

[Cross-posted from New Books in History] Pretty much everyone understands what is called the "Cult of Celebrity," particularly as it manifests itself in the arts. It's a mentality that privileges the actor over the act, the singer over the song, the painter over the painting, and so on. The Cult of Celebrity's essence is a fanatical and even irrational devotion to individuals who have, so it seems, some magical, charismatic quality. It's all around us today. But it wasn't always so. In her fascinating new book Fandom, Authenticity, and Opera: Mad Acts and Letter Scenes in Fin-de-Siècle Russia (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013), Anna Fishzon explores the development of the Cult of Celebrity in  late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian opera. In many ways, fin-de-siécle Russia was out-of-step with the West: it was ruled by an autocrat, dominated by a mass of poor peasants, and struggling to find its way to economic and political modernity. But, as Anna points out, the Russians–or at least those in places where Western culture was on display–embraced the burgeoning Cult of Celebrity. They made and worshiped stars, tried to look and act like them, and went to great lengths to be in their presence and communicate with them. Russian opera fans believed that their idols were transparent souls. They transcended art; they were truly authentic. You could, in their performances, see who they really were. And, as Anna notes, this devotion to "authenticity" did not die with the Imperial Regime in 1917. The Bolsheviks believed in it as well, and they searched mightily for authenticity in their subjects. Who, they asked, was a real communist and who was an  "enemy of the people?" The performance–at show trials, for example–would tell.

[Cross-posted from New Books in Technology] The image of online gaming in popular culture is that of an addictive pastime, mired in escapism. And the denizens of virtual worlds are thought to be mostly socially awkward teenaged boys. In his new book The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us–and How They Don’t (Yale University Press, 2014), Nick Yee asserts that the common stereotypes of gaming and gamers are not, and have never been, based in fact. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPGs as they are called, attract a diverse community of users with a range of ages, economic statuses, and motivations for playing. Basing his conclusions on his own research into online gaming and virtual worlds, Yee finds that far from creating separate worlds with new rules for its member, MMORPGs reinforce the social norms from offline society.

[Cross-posted from New Books in Environmental Studies] Jon Mooallem’s book Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals In America (Penguin, 2013) is a tour of a few places on the North American continent where animal species are on the very brink of extinction. What emerges is as much a story about creatures clinging on in the Anthropocene as it is a story about humans clinging to their humanity by clinging to disappearing animals. It is a book rich with humor, insight, history, sadness, hope, and the kind of ambiguity that makes you feel like beautiful things are still possible, despite the daily news. Jon Mooallem is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, and he has also contributed to Harper’s, This American Life, Radiolab, The Believer, and Pop-Up Magazine.

[Cross-posted from New Books in Pop Music] Today Detroit is down for the count, but as Steve Miller reveals in Detroit Rock City: The Uncensored History of Rock 'n' Roll in America's Loudest City (Da Capo Press, 2013), his comprehensive oral history of the city's rock scene, the Motor City's musicians never gave up the fight. Based on dozens of interviews with veteran promoters, leading musicians, and überfans, Miller's insightful conversations trace the evolution of the city's scene from its blues-rock beginnings through its current rock-rap incarnations. Along the way Miller demonstrates that while Detroit's rock community never got the respect it deserved from its New York and Los Angeles counterparts, no metropolis did more to make American rock music loud, heavy, and primal. Miller begins his saga at the legendary Grande Ballroom, the now crumbling 1960s mecca for live rock, which hosted superstar acts like the Who and Janis Joplin and served as the springboard for two seminal Detroit acts, the MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges. By the early 1970s, Detroit was well on the way to becoming Rock City, USA. It played host to the Goose Lake Festival, a massively successful gathering that rivaled Woodstock. It was home to Creem, the country's best rock magazine. It incubated the careers of Bob Seger and Ted Nugent, performers who would become two of America's biggest arena rock acts in the mid-1970s. Miller then expertly navigates the city's obscure punk scene of the 1980s. Many of the acts will be unfamiliar to readers, but Miller's own experiences as a musician who played in a Michigan-based punk band during these years give these pages a rawness and immediacy that many such accounts lack. Miller closes with eye-opening perspectives on the city's current scene by garage rock revivalist Jack White and America's pariahs of rap, the Insane Clown Posse. One sad postscript to this interview: Iggy and the Stooges co-founder and drummer Scott Asheton died on 15 March 2014 at the age of 64. RIP. Steve Miller is a journalist and the author of several books including the Edgar-nominated true crime Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender. He is co-editor of Commando: The Johnny Ramone Autobiography and editor of Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83. He can be reached through his website or via Twitter @penvengeance.

[Cross-posted from New Books in History] Most of us have been to strip malls–lines of shops fronted by acres of parking–and most of us have been to closed malls–massive buildings full of shops and surrounded by acres of parking. Fewer of us have been to open malls: small parks ringed by shops with parking carefully tucked out of sight. That's because open malls–once numerous–have largely disappeared, having been replaced by strip malls, closed malls and, more recently, big-box stores. As David Smiley points out in his wonderfully researched and beautifully illustrated book Pedestrian Modern: Shopping and American Architecture, 1925-1956 (University of Minnesota Press, 2013), the open mall was a response to a number of macro-historical, mid-twentieth century forces: the explosion of car culture, the decline of urban centers, the rise of suburbs, and, of course, mass consumerism. But he also shows that the open mall wasn't just an banal machine for selling; it was a canvas upon which Modernist architects could create a uniquely American kind of Modernist architecture. The strip mall, the closed mall, and the big-box store may be artless, but the mid-century open mall certainly was not. It had style, as the many wonderful images in David's book show. Interestingly, the open mall is making a comeback. I visited one outside Hartford, Connecticut. Alas, it has none of the Modernist elements that made the original open malls so interesting. To me, it looked like a closed mall turned inside out.

[Cross-posted from New Books in East Asian Studies]  In contemporary China, the game of Weiqi (also known as Go) represents many things at the same time: the military power of the general, the intellect and control of the Confucian gentleman, the rationality of the modern scientist. In Go Nation: Chinese Masculinities and the Game of Weiqi in China (University of California, 2013), Marc L. Moskowitz considers these aspects of Weiqi, treating the game as a lens through which to observe what it means to be a child, a university student, or a senior citizen in contemporary China, and how different modes of masculinity are constructed within those spheres. Moskowitz’s fascinating study is based on extended ethnographic research in Beijing that included studying Weiqi with children in series of school programs, playing in parks with retired construction workers, and playing alongside intensely committed university students in the Peking University Weiqi Club. Rendered in wonderfully clear and accessible prose, the account focuses on the masculinities emerging within those groups but pays ample attention to women Weiqi players at all levels who also work within these social structures. Go Nation pays close attention to aspects of Weiqi culture that reflect broader nationalistic, ethical, historical, and social discourses within contemporary China, and it is both a pleasurable and enlightening read. You can find out more about Moskowitz’s film Weiqi Wonders here.

Aswin PunthamabekarView on AmazonAswin Punthamabekar's From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry (New York University Press, 2013) offers a deeply researched and richly theorized look at the evolution of the world's largest film industry over the past few decades.  Combining ethnographic research with close textual analyses of Bollywood films, Punthamabekar shows how the media industry's growth has been complexly intertwined with India's emerging place in the global economy.  The book offers a nuanced look at globalization, bringing to light the tensions and productivities that emerge when a highly powerful, historically localized industry enters the world of multinational capitalism.

[Cross-posted from New Books in Islamic Studies] Several studies about Islam in Asian contexts highlight the pluralistic environment that Muslims inhabit and interplay of various religious traditions that color local practice and thought. In The Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in South India (Oxford University Press, 2013) we are given a first hand account of the devotional life and dynamic setting that produces one such example. Afsar Mohammad, professor at the University of Texas at Austin, documents public rituals and devotional stories revolving around a Sufi master, Kullayappa, and the 300,000 pilgrims from throughout South Asia who travel to the small village of Gugudu. In The Festival of Pirs we are shown how the events occurring during the month of Muharram and the narrative of the Battle of Karbala are transformed into a meaningful local frame. Here, the importance of the ‘local’ becomes clear while both Muslims and Hindus participate in these events. In fact, participants identify their practices as Kullayappa devotion (bakhti) instead of the more singular categories we are more familiar with, such as Muslim and Hindu. Mohammad also examines the tensions between these practices and the reformist activity of Muslims following what they call ‘True’ (asli) Islam. In our conversation we discussed frictions between mosque and shrine cultures, textual authority, the role of Telugu language, local and localized Islam, political sermons, public rituals, temporary asceticism, and religious identity.  

[Cross-posted from New Books in Critical Theory] Narrative, Identity, and the Map of Cultural Policy: Once Upon a Time in a Globalized World (Ashgate, 2013), a new book by Constance DeVereaux (Colorado State University) and Martin Griffin (University of Tennessee) sets out to challenge assumptions about policy making and culture in the contemporary world. The book has, at its centre, an understanding of narrative as both a practice that is central to what it means to be human and an analytical tool for understanding policy and culture. The book uses a wide range of case studies to illustrate the importance of this dual understanding of narrative to account for debates and differences between understandings of global culture as potentially threatening, in the form of globalization, or liberating, in the form of transnationalism. The case studies range from film and media studies, historical examples of Berlin and the USA’s National Endowment for the Arts, as well as questions over cultural heritage, through to readings of fictional case studies using the same narrative methods. The book will be essential reading for all scholars working in cultural policy and cultural studies, but also represents a challenge to the mainstream approaches of political science thinking about public policy.

[Cross-posted from New Books in Journalism] “When we criticize the news, who are we really criticizing?” This is the final question asked by Professor Joseph Uscinski in his book, The People’s News: Media, Politics, and the Demands of Capitalism (NYU Press, 2014). The answer, Uscinski says in his interview, is us—the consumer. News producers, he writes, are merely responding to the demands of consumers, adjusting news content based on ratings, polls and audience demographics. The People’s News views news through the lens of news as a commodity beholden to market forces, not as a type of media. Combining the academic disciplines of media effects and political economy, The People’s News is a well-researched and well-reported look at what happens when the concepts of free press and democracy collide.

View on AmazonThis week's episode features Sam Miller and Jason Wojciechowski, editors of the Baseball Prospectus' 2014 (Wiley, 2014), a yearbook that both previews the upcoming baseball season and provides readers a look into the state of the art in baseball analysis, both in terms of advanced statistical metrics and, increasingly, subjective player scouting. Though the book is not a traditional work of scholarship, it offers many of the virtues that one hopes to find in the best academic projects.  It questions our assumptions, showing that what we think leads to success on the diamond, often does not.  It builds on previous insights, positioning itself in the tradition begun by the legendary Bill James' baseball abstracts from the 1980s.  And, perhaps most importantly, the book has shown itself to be increasingly willing to be self-critical, evolving in its methodology as new evidence and ideas come to light.  It is also, of course, a lot of fun.

[Cross-posted from New Books in Asian American Studies] Thuy Linh Tu's The Beautiful Generation: Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion (Duke University Press, 2010) considers the recent rise of Asian Americans working in New York's fashion industry, and explores how Asian-inspired fashions speak to American anxieties concerning the growing economic and cultural power of Asian nation-states. Rather than see Asian American designers as either complicit or subversive to the growing trends of Asian chic, The Beautiful Generation investigates how these designers continue to change American perspectives of fashion by making relationships between the product and the manufacturing process more intimate.

Patrick BurkartPatrick Burkart's Pirate Politics: The New Information Policy Conflicts (MIT Press, 2014) considers the democratic potential and theoretical significance of groups espousing radical perspectives on intellectual property and cyber-liberty.  Focusing on the Swedish Pirate Party, Burkart details the history of these movements, noting the ways in which they have impacted both the local politics of Europe and the international culture industries.  Employing conceptual models drawn from both critical theory and new social movement theory, Burkart makes a compelling case that the politics of piracy must understood as a defense of common culture.  Just as social movements have come together to protect the environment, pirate politics aim to keep the Internet a space in individual and communal rights are not overrun by the interests of governments and corporations.

[Cross-posted from New Books in History] If you’re younger than 45 or so, you probably don’t remember the “Battle of the Sexes.”  This tennis match, between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, is one of the iconic moments in American history of the 1970s. It represented a breakthrough moment for women in sports, a symbol of the progress women were making to finally receive something like equality of opportunity and resources in athletics. For Billie Jean King, however, the match was only a small part of a life lived in the pursuit of the opportunity for access and success for herself and for women in general.  As Susan Ware outlines in her outstanding new book Game, Set, Match:  Billie Jean King and the Revolution in Women’s Sports (University of North Carolina Press, 2011), King saw herself not simply as an athlete, but as an advocate for women in athletics.   Throughout her career, King lent her voice and her reputation to those pushing institutions and leaders to let women play.  The result was, as Ware puts it, revolutionary. Ware’s book is biography at its best.  It examines King’s life on its own terms.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Instead, it uses King’s life as a lens through which to view the broader social and cultural conflicts that swept through American society in the 1970s and after.  Anyone reading the book will have a much greater sense of why the world we live in today is so dramatically different than the one in which our parents or grandparents grew up.