Blue-Collar Pop Culture: From NASCAR to Jersey Shore [2 volumes]

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Description

From television, film, and music to sports, comics, and everyday life, this book provides a comprehensive view of working-class culture in America. The terms "blue collar" and "working class" remain incredibly vague in the United States, especially in pop culture, where they are used to express and connote different things at different times. Interestingly, most Americans are, in reality, members of the working class, even if they do not necessarily think of themselves that way. Perhaps the popularity of many cultural phenomena focused on the working class can be explained in this way: we are endlessly fascinated by ourselves. Blue-Collar Pop Culture: From NASCAR to Jersey Shore provides a sophisticated, accessible, and entertaining examination of the intersection between American popular culture and working-class life in America. Covering topics as diverse as the attacks of September 11th, union loyalties, religion, trailer parks, professional wrestling, and Elvis Presley, the essays in this two-volume work will appeal to general readers and be valuable to scholars and students studying American popular culture.

Reviews

The scope of the collection distinguishes it from more focused treatments. Together the essays offer both in-depth analyses of exemplary films or television shows and overviews of genre trends. . . . Summing Up: Recommended. * Choice *
The text is well researched and documented. . . . This is a scholarly work best suited for the shelves of academic libraries, especially those that support social or cultural studies curricula. * Library Journal *

Author Bio

M. Keith Booker is the James E. and Ellen Wadley Roper Professor of English at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he also directs the program in comparative literature and cultural studies. He has written or edited more than 40 books on literature, literary theory, and popular culture.