As someone who hopes to study popular fiction as part of popular
culture, YES it's a part. I would say part of the problem in defining
popular culture is defining the audience. Who is
reading/watching/listening and how you determine consumption will affect
inclusion. I might admit that popular media is changing in this century
(film, radio, etc) but maybe we haven't considered past examples of
popular media enough (such as magazine illustrations, pulp
magazines/books of the late 19th/early 20th century).
Does this help? Thinking specifically of science fiction as popular
culture, if it in some way reflects on a popular consciousness (or some
part of it) then it would be popular and I think that's been
well-documented enough.
misha
bernard@colorado.edu
Oh, that and the fact popular culture studies are mostly in departments
heavily associated (historically) with English depts if not actually in
them should also mean something.
>----------
>From: Erik Tsao[SMTP:aa1004@WAYNE.EDU]
>Sent: Thursday, December 04, 1997 9:13 AM
>To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU
>Subject: [*FSFFU*] genres, etc.
>
>Last night I wsa talking with a fellow graduate student who wanted to argue
>against the idea that popular fiction is a part of popular culture. I
>think I understand what he meant. Which was something like the fact that
>people are more likely to consume pop cultural texts like film, music,
>television, etc. than to read popular fiction. That doesn't seem quite
>right considering the immense popularity of romance novels, adventure
>fiction, and mysteries, not to forget mentioning science fiction and
>fantasy. Not only that but there is a very clear connection, as we've seen
>in some of the discussions on this list, that popular genres of film (such
>as romance, mystery, adventure, etc.) are very much connected with popular
>fiction. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
>
>Erik
>
>Erik Tsao
>Department of English
>Wayne State University
>Detroit, MI
>
>"like bigger thomas
>i didn't want to love but what
>i loved for. i am."
>
>-- Sonia Sanchez
>
>(From _I've Been A Woman: New and Selected Poems_. Chicago, IL: Third
>World Press, 1985. p. 78.)
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:38 PDT