WAUKESHA – The University of Wisconsin-Waukesha local Alpha Chi Rho chapter of the national honor society for two-year colleges, Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), is sponsoring a video series on “Popular Culture: Shaping and Reflecting Who We Are.” Produced by the national PTK Honors program, the hour-long segments will be shown at noon on five Thursdays, beginning February 17. A UW-Waukesha faculty member will introduce and discuss each topic. Showings will be held in Room 101 of the Commons, located on campus at 1500 N. University Dr. Admission is free and open to the public.
On each tape, an expert takes an introspective look into society’s mind. They will investigate what comprises popular culture – television, film, music, fashion, sports and games, literature? Each will examine one aspect. In introducing the series, the PTK Web site asserts, “Popular culture not only reflects who we are as a society but influences who we are to become.”
The five videos in the series and their presenters are:
February 17. “(Mis)understanding History: Shaping Modern Myth and Popular Values.” After a live introduction by Tim Thering, UW-Waukesha assistant professor of history, a tape featuring Dr. Robert McElvaine will be shown. The Elizabeth Chisholm Professor of Arts and Letters and chair of the department of history at Millsaps College, Jackson, MS, McElvaine has taught for more than 25 years, has edited three books and authored six, including Eve’s Seed: Biology, the Sexes, and the Course of History. He has written articles and opinion pieces for the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times Book Review, Boston Globe, and Newsweek and appeared as a guest on approximately 60 television and radio programs, including NPR’s All Things Considered.
He will explore the impact of 20th century popular culture on mass (mis)understanding of history first by examining the influences of two films, D. W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation (1915) and Oliver Stone’s JFK (1991), both cinematic masterpieces which presented extremely misleading versions of history. Then he will give additional examples from film, music, and television and consider the role of popular culture in shaping American values. He argues that the phony “culture war” that has raged since the 1960’s has in fact worked in concert with American business to maximize consumption.
March 3: “Creating and Marketing Youth: Youth Music and Culture in 20th Century America.” UW-Waukesha associate professor of music Craig Hurst will introduce the program to be presented by Dr. Tricia Rose. She teaches American Studies at the University of California-Santa Cruz and specializes in 20th century African-American culture and politics, social thought, popular culture, and gender issues. The author of Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, she has been the featured expert commentator on NPR and other radio and television and been cited in magazine and newspaper articles.
She will review the development of mass culture and explore its relationship to issues of race and the surfacing of a youth culture in the first half of the 20th century, linking the emergence of rock and roll and rhythm and blues to changing social formations in the 1950’s and 1960’s. She also will look at the rise of hip hop and its connection with both post-industrial urban America and suburban America since the 1980’s. While youth music and culture contribute important forms of social change and cross-racial exchange, they are vulnerable to market manipulation, which at times perpetuate racial inequalities.
March 17: “The Empire of Images: Growing Up Male and Female in a World Dominated by Popular Culture.” Associate professor of English at UW-Waukesha and director of women’s studies, Elizabeth Zanichkowsky will comment on the presentation by Dr. Susan Bordo, who is a professor of English and women’s studies and holder of the Otis A. Singletary Chair of Humanities at the University of Kentucky. She has written several books, including The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private and Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. She was first to draw attention to the profound role of cultural images in the spread of eating programs across race and class in the latter, and it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The author of a field of work known as “body studies,” she has been sought for interviews on radio, television, and in magazines. She addresses such issues as easting disorders, cosmetic surgery, beauty and evolutional theory, racism and the body, masculinity and the male body, sexual harassment, and the impact of contemporary media.
Dr. Bordo contends that the power of mass imagery has overtaken that from more traditional sources, such as parents, clergy, and teachers. These new images embody the “rules” for success, and they emphasize the “fit” body, physical attractiveness, and sexual allure. Yet, they also have been challenged, creating a visual world of racial and ethnic diversity that mirrors what can be seen in the culture. Mass media has become a powerful tool for cultural change through which people transform the conditions of their lives.
April 7: “Courting Disaster? Changing Values about Love, Sex and Marriage.” Assistant professor of anthropology Kathy Bubinas will set the stage for the video with Stephanie Coontz, professor of history and family studies at The Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington, and national co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families. A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Coontz has written several books, including The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, and is working on another on the history of marriage. She also has taught in Japan and Hawaii. She has testified before a committee of the House, been featured in numerous newspaper, magazine, and academic journal articles, and appeared on national television and radio programs.
Over the past 85 years, America has undergone periods of panic about the future of marriage, family, and traditional values. Yet, Coontz perceives a disconnect between the way marriage is portrayed in popular culture and the way it has been experienced. A “reality check” helps in understanding many of today’s hot issues, such as same-sex marriage, working mothers, single-parent homes, divorce, youth sexuality, and more.
April 21: “Sports in Popular culture: Are We Winning or Losing?” Assistant professor of English Greg Ahrenhoerster, who wrote his dissertation on sports metaphors in American fiction, will give context to the video presentation by Dr. Richard Lapchick, who chairs the DeVos Sports Business Management program at the University of Central Florida, directs the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, and serves as president of the National Consortium for Academics and Sport. Lapchick also founded the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University in 1984. A pioneer for racial justice in sport, he led a project in the early 1990’s to improve race relations through sports in post-apartheid South Africa. He is a regular columnist for the Sports Business Journal and Sporting News. The most recent of the 10 books he’s written contains a foreword by Muhammad Ali.
He will trace the development of sports in American history and emphasize their favorable impact in contributing to healthy bodies, teamwork, and self-esteem. In becoming a big business, however, they have experienced growing pains, with a certain number of “bad boys” and “bad girls” providing negative role models. A passionate reformer, he will offer some solutions that he and his associates have been working on for years to answer these problems.
UW-Waukesha has the largest enrollment among the 13 freshman-sophomore UW Colleges campuses. For information about its programs, admission, or financial aid, contact the Student Services office at (262) 521-5200 or visit the Web
waukesha.uwc.edu.
|
