scholarly journals Rethinking the Cultural Icon: Its Use and Function in Popular Culture

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Truman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Values ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Icon ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Academic Scholarship ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
And Function

Background  The role of cultural icons in twenty-first century North American popular culture has been under-theorized in communication scholarship. This is a significant gap in knowledge, given the importance of the icon as a public text through which collective cultural values are symbolized.Analysis  Using the novel approach of the scoping review, this article illuminates the current landscape of iconic studies by identifying wide-ranging examples of the cultural icon from academic scholarship, recognizing organizational categories, and synthesizing existing definitions to highlight the limits of current conceptualizations.Conclusions and Implications  Informed by the collected data, this article suggests a redefinition of the cultural icon that considers its current novel role in revealing tensions between different articulations of collective cultural values.Contexte  Le rôle des icônes culturels dans la culture populaire nord-américaine de ce siècle n’a pas encore reçu une attention théorique soutenue en communication. Cette lacune est sérieuse, vu l’importance de l’icône en tant que texte public par lequel nous représentons nos valeurs culturelles collectives.Analyse  Au moyen de l’approche novatrice qu’est l’examen de la portée, cet article illumine le terrain contemporain des études iconiques en identifiant divers exemples de l’icône culturel dans la recherche académique, en recensant des catégories organisationnelles pour celui-ci, et en faisant la synthèse de définitions courantes afin de souligner les limites des conceptualisations actuelles.Conclusion et implications  Cet article s’inspire des données recueillies pour proposer une redéfinition de l’icône culturel qui rend compte de son rôle novateur de souligner les tensions sous-tendant diverses articulations de valeurs culturelles collectives.

Bioerodible Polypyrrole

2001 ◽  
Vol 711 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Zelikin ◽  
Venkatram Shastri ◽  
David Lynn ◽  
Jian Farhadi ◽  
Ivan Martin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Erosion Rate ◽  
Acid Group ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Carboxylic Acid Group ◽  
Polymer Backbone ◽  
Cellular Processes ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Efficient Control ◽  
And Function ◽  
Substrate Independent

ABSTRACTConductive polymers such as polypyrrole (Ppy) are potentially useful as an active interface for altering cellular processes and function. Their utilization in medically related applications however have been substantially held back by their non-degradable nature. Herein we report a novel approach to creation of bioerodible polypyrroles via modification of pyrrole beta-carbon with an ionizable moiety. It has been shown that the erosion rate of acid-bearing derivative of polypyrrole increases with pH, which is consistent with the pH dependent ionization of carboxylic acid group. The novel paradigm proposed for the creation of bioerodible polypyrroles allows for simple and efficient control over the erosion rate of the substrate independent of the polymer chain length, via the choice of the terminal ionizable group and its concentration along the polymer backbone.

Epilogue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Le Zotte
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
Heroin User ◽  
Average Consumer ◽  
Cultural Currency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Used Goods

The epilogue discusses the contining role of secondhand commerce and style in the twenty-first century United States. Throughout the twentieth century, used goods economies codified and expanded, branching out into million-dollar industries. Vintage exhibitionism and elective poverty merged even more decisively at the end of the millennium. After habitual heroin user Kurt Cobain took his own life with a shotgun in 1994, styles straight-facedly called shabby chic, heroin chic, or poor chic enjoyed greater cultural currency than ever before. Voluntary secondhand dress persists precisely because it suggests both cultural and economic distinction, and shoppers continued to view secondhand venues as exceptions to the social and economic critiques of dominant capitalisms. Secondhand styles satisfy a desire to be seen as different than the average consumer dupe, as willing to invest time in the cultivation of originality without utilizing class and wealth privilege. The success of the 2013 song, “Thrift Shop,” by independent rappers Macklemore and Lewis—born and raised in the hometown of grunge, Seattle— attests to the continuing relevance of secondhand to popular culture.

David Mitchell’s Inefficiency

2021 ◽  
pp. 149-183
Author(s):  
Thom Dancer
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Literary Realism ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
The Future ◽  
Massive Scale ◽  
And Function ◽  
Prior State ◽  
Cultural Force

David Mitchell’s fiction provides an opportunity to reconsider the claims of modesty in the context of globalization. This chapter draws upon the arguments of the previous ones to put critical modesty to its most difficult test. Are minor achievements enough given the massive scale of planetary life and of urgent global problems facing humanity, not the least of which is environmental ruin? I argue that Mitchell’s novels directly face the problems of scaling that cast into doubt the place and function of the novel as a relevant cultural force in the twenty-first century and beyond. Mitchell’s work helps us to reconcile realism as a kind of modest speculation. Where the novel has long been understood as a form that easily scales from the local to the global, Mitchell emphasizes the discontinuity afforded by novelistic thinking. The efficient causality that has subtended literary realism aims to retroactively recreate the events that lead inevitably from the past to the future. Mitchell’s formal investment in discontinuity resists the tyranny of the inevitable by narrating moments of bifurcation in which a new possibility for action suddenly and unexpectedly emerges. Thus, his novels adopt an inefficient causality that give expression to the feeling that things might be different than they are, that inevitability (optimistic or pessimistic) is a dangerous trap. The challenge that Mitchell poses for himself and other novelists is to imagine a disposition modest enough to nurture and shepherd into being these moments of bifurcation when, by definition, there is nothing in the prior state that predicts them.

Cold War Legacies: The Migration and Transformation of Popular/Unpopular Culture

2007 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 137-143
Author(s):  
Roger Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cold War ◽  
International Context ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

This article reviews two recent collections of essays that focus on the role of popular culture in the Cold War. The article sets the phenomenon into a wide international context and shows how American popular culture affected Europe and vice versa. The essays in these two collections, though divergent in many key respects, show that culture is dynamic and that the past as interpreted from the perspective of the present is often reworked with new meanings. Understanding popular culture in its Cold War context is crucial, but seeing how the culture has evolved in the post-Cold War era can illuminate our view of its Cold War roots.

scholarly journals Role of Membrane Cholesterol Levels in the Lateral Diffusion and Function of the Novel Slow Channel Congenital Myasthenia Syndrome αC418W AChR Mutant

2009 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 168a
Author(s):  
Jessica Oyola-Cintrón ◽  
Daniel Caballero-Rivera ◽  
Leomar Ballester ◽  
Karla Vélez-Arroyo ◽  
Jomarie García-Matos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lateral Diffusion ◽  
Membrane Cholesterol ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cholesterol Levels ◽  
Slow Channel ◽  
Congenital Myasthenia ◽  
And Function

scholarly journals Microstructural and Functional Gradients are Increasingly Dissociated in Transmodal Cortices

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey Paquola ◽  
Reinder Vos De Wael ◽  
Konrad Wagstyl ◽  
Richard A.I. Bethlehem ◽  
Seok-Jun Hong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
System Level ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Neural Function ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Primate Research ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
And Function ◽  
The Relationship

SummaryWhile the role of cortical microstructure in organising neural function is well established, it remains unclear how structural constraints can give rise to more flexible elements of cognition. While non-human primate research has demonstrated a close structure-function correspondence, the relationship between microstructure and function remains poorly understood in humans, in part because of the reliance onpost mortemanalyses which cannot be directly related to functional data. To overcome this barrier, we developed a novel approach to model the similarity of microstructural profiles sampled in the direction of cortical columns. Our approach was initially formulated based on an ultra-high-resolution 3D histological reconstruction of an entire human brain and then translated to myelin-sensitive MRI data in a large cohort of healthy adults. This novel method identified a system-level gradient of microstructural differentiation traversing from primary sensory to limbic regions that followed shifts in laminar differentiation and cytoarchitectural complexity. Importantly, while microstructural and functional gradients described a similar hierarchy, they became increasingly dissociated in transmodal default mode and fronto-parietal networks. Meta analytic decoding of these topographic dissociations highlighted involvement in higher-level aspects of cognition such as cognitive control and social cognition. Our findings demonstrate a relative decoupling of macroscale functional from microstructural gradients in transmodal regions, which likely contributes to the flexible role these regions play in human cognition.

Television and the Bible in American Popular Culture

2020 ◽  
pp. 308-329
Author(s):  
Matthew A. Collins
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
First Century ◽  
Television Programs ◽  
Biblical Literacy ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
American Television ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Impact

This essay examines the Bible in American television, focusing in particular on the twenty-first century. It suggests that there are three broad categories which may helpfully illustrate and encompass the diverse ways in which the Bible appears and/or is utilized: (1) educating about the Bible (e.g., documentaries); (2) dramatizing the Bible (renditions of biblical stories); and (3) drawing on the Bible (the impact or use of the Bible in other television programs). Examining each of these in turn, this essay highlights the prevalence of the Bible on television and thus in American popular culture more generally, as well as considering some of the myriad ways in which it has been read, used, and interpreted. In particular, it endeavors to show how the medium can function as a tool for both reflecting and promoting levels of biblical literacy among its audience.

The Inclusion Solution? The Use of Blackface in Jordan Peele’s "Get Out"

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Toka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Peculiar Form ◽  
The Us ◽  
Black Bodies

Jordan Peele’s 2017 social thriller Get Out depicts a peculiar form of body swap resulting from the uncanny desires of the Armitage family to seize captured black bodies and use them as carriers of their white minds. This paper offers a reading of the movie’s disturbing plot through the lens of the origins and cultural significance of blackface. For the sake of argument, in this article blackface is to be understood as a cultural phenomenon encompassing the symbolic role of black people basic to the US society, which articulates the ambiguity of celebration and exploitation of blackness in American popular culture. This article draws on the theoretical framework of blackface developed by Lott, Rogin, Ellison, and Gubar, in order to explore the Get Out’s complex commentary on the twenty-first century race relations in the United States. As a result, this paper turns the spotlight on the mechanisms of racist thinking in the United States, by showing the movie’s use of the apparatus underpinning blackface.

From Camelot to Spamalot

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Woller
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Round Table ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Arthurian Legend ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
American Popular Culture ◽  
Film Musicals ◽  
Monty Python

This book explores musicalizations of Arthurian legend as filtered through specific tellings by Mark Twain, T. H. White, and Monty Python. For centuries, Arthurian legend with its tales of Camelot, romance, and chivalry has captured imaginations throughout Europe and the Americas. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, musical versions of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table have abounded in the United States, shaping the legend for American audiences through song. The ever-shifting, age-old tale of King Arthur and his world is one which thrives on adaptation for its survival. New generations tell the story in their own ways, updating or enhancing the relevance for a fresh audience. Taking a case-study approach, this work foregrounds the role of music in selected Arthurian adaptations, examining six stage and film musicals. It considers how musical versions in twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular culture interpret the legend of King Arthur, contending that music guides the audience to understand this well-known tale and its characters in new and unexpected ways. All of the productions considered include an overtly modern perspective on the legend, intruding and even commenting on the tale of King Arthur. Shifting from an idealistic utopia to a silly place, the myriad notions of Camelot offer a look at the importance of myth in American popular culture.

Maurice and Religion

2020 ◽  
pp. 154-174
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Fordoński
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
British Society ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The World ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Changing Role

This chapter explores the role and representation of religion in the text of Maurice and in critical readings of the novel. Concentrating primarily on the text itself, the chapter offers close readings of those parts of the novel where religion/religions play a part, stressing their importance in the structure of the novel. This analysis retraces the influence of religion (predominantly Christianity but also ancient Greek and pagan religious thought) on the main characters’ psychological development and behaviour, especially on the way they try to deal with irreconcilable demands of religion and their own psyche. The chapter thus reflects on Forster’s attitude towards religious institutions and the changing role religion played in early twentieth-century British society and among Edwardian writers. The chapter also considers the role of religion in the reception of the novel, both in scholarship and among twenty-first-century readers. The chapter concludes by considering questions of reception and the relevance of Maurice to twenty-first-century (queer) readers as concepts of homosexuality have undergone considerable changes in parts of the world.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document