We cannot attribute any purity of political expression to popular culture, although we can locate its power to identify |
The magnificent and exciting Stuttgart StaatsGalerie was holding an extensive Pop Art Exhibition at the time of my visit. It was a well curated exhibition of the Pop Art movement in the USA and UK primarily, in the 1950s & 1960s mainly. Here is my journey through that exhibition, and an increasing realisation that modern art of a time period is often a window on the future, or one possible future. |
Is American Culture American? Richard Pells is professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of three books: Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought in the Depression Years; The Liberal Mind in a Conservative Age: American Intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s; and Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture Since World War II. He is currently at work on From Modernism to the Movies: The Globalization of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. He has held six Fulbright senior lectureships and chairs, as well as other visiting professorships, at universities in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Finland, Brazil, Australia, and Indonesia.
|
In 1800, everyday life had changed little since the year 1000. Yet, by 1900 the Industrial Revolution had transformed the world's economy. The United States was still new and making its way to becoming a world power. Watch it happen as you browse your way through each decade. Then visit the suggested links for more information. Because we are librarians, we must point out that the best way to immerse oneself in a topic is to use both Internet and library books. Nothing like getting your hands on books! The smell alone is intoxicating! Our intention is to offer an overview of the century in a 'semi-essay' form - and to let the links we have chosen take users even further. |
Popular culture has been defined as everything from "common culture," to "folk culture," to "mass culture." While it has been all of these things at various points in history, in Post-War America, popular culture is undeniably associated with commercial culture and all its trappings: movies, television, radio, cyberspace, advertising, toys, nearly any commodity available for purchase, many forms of art, photography, games, and even group "experiences" like collective comet-watching or rave dancing on ecstasy. While humanities and social science departments before the 1950s would rarely have imagined including anything from the previous list in their curricula, it is now widely acknowledged that popular culture can.
(From Pop Culture / Post WWII American Literature and Culture database) |
Optimism That Obama Will Support Decriminialization of Marijuana
In July, Obama told Rolling Stone that he believed in “shifting the paradigm” to a public-health approach: “I would start with nonviolent, first-time drug offenders. The notion that we are imposing felonies on them or sending them to prison, where they are getting advanced degrees in criminality, instead of thinking about ways like drug courts that can get them back on track in their lives — it’s expensive, it’s counterproductive, and it doesn’t make sense.” Meanwhile, economists have been making the beer argument. In a paper titled “Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition,” Dr. Jeffrey Miron of Harvard argues that legalized marijuana would generate between $10 and $14 billion in savings and taxes every year — conclusions endorsed by 300 top economists, including Milton “Free Market” Friedman himself. |
HIGH is OUT NOW! The sick and the infirm are dying without the medication they need, forced to live with intractable pain. Why? IV drug users aren't given proper treatment or allowed to have clean needles because it would "send the wrong message." Better to let them die from AIDS and take the rest of us with them. Why? This is a rallying cry, a time for action, and a way forward. This is the battle that determines the war. |
The Next Next Things
LLUSTRATIONS |
