Sources for Popular Culture
Did you know that Dr. Ray Broadus Browne, who was Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University from 1967-1992, is often credited for making the term “popular culture” an everyday phrase back in 1967? Browne said that “Popular culture is the voice of democracy, democracy speaking and acting, the seedbed in which democracy grows. It is the everyday world around us; the mass media, entertainments and diversions. It is our heroes, icons, rituals, everyday actions, psychology and religion—our total life picture. It is the way of living we inherit, practice, and modify as we please, and how we do it. It is the dreams we dream while asleep.” (Bio for Dr. Browne, BGSU)
- Ray & Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies at Bowling Green State UniversityThe Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States. The focus of the BPCL is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post-1876) for curricular and research use. Collection strengths include research materials on popular fiction, popular entertainment, and the graphic arts.
- Alice Marshall Women's History Collection - Flickr Albums
Follow this link to view selected albums on Flickr, which features digitized images of advertisements, comic and sentimental/romantic valentines, pin-back buttons, posters, postcards, sheet music, and more from the Alice Marshall Women's History Collection in Archives and Special Collections at the Penn State Harrisburg Library. This online image gallery is a useful primary resource for students and researchers especially in American Studies.
- ArchiveGrid This link opens in a new windowArchiveGrid includes over 5 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,000 different archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.
- Popular Culture in Britain and America, 1950-1975 This link opens in a new windowPopular Culture in Britain and America explores the dynamic period of social, political and cultural change between 1950 and 1975. The resource offers thousands of color images of manuscript and rare printed material as well as photographs, ephemera and memorabilia from this exciting period in our recent history.
- Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP)Formerly known as the Experience Museum Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame (EMP|SFM), the Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP) was founded by Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen, in the year 2000. MoPop features numerous exhibits that focus on many aspects of pop culture including the art of fantasy, horror films, science fiction literature, and video games.
- Social Media Archives (SOMAR)The Social Media Archive (SOMAR) is a revolutionary initiative and data resource that makes social media data accessible and useful to researchers like never before. Housed in the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research (ISR), SOMAR will democratize access to some of the most consequential information in contemporary society.
- Catalog (Penn State University Libraries catalog) This link opens in a new windowThis is the online catalog of materials owned by Penn State Libraries. All formats (books, journals, audiovisuals, maps, recordings, etc.) are included. Circulation status for individual items is also provided. Coverage: Presently contains about 7 million records.
- Rock's Backpages This link opens in a new windowRock's Backpages is a full-text online library of rock music journalism published since 1960, including reviews, interviews, and features on artists from Aaliyah to ZZ Top, from over 100 of the most influential magazines and newspapers, including Cashbox, Creem, Crawdaddy!, Melody Maker, Mojo, Spin, Uncut, and Vibe.
- Journal of Popular Culture
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Official publication of the Popular Culture Association (PCA)
- America: History & Life with Full Text This link opens in a new windowSearch for articles on all aspects of the history of the United States and Canada from prehistory to the present. Articles from national, state and local historical journals are covered, as well as historical articles in major humanities and social science journals.
- Film & Television Literature Index This link opens in a new windowFilm & Television Literature Index is a comprehensive bibliographic database covering the entire spectrum of television and film writing, including theory, preservation and restoration; writing, production, cinematography; production and film and television reviews.
- JSTOR This link opens in a new windowJSTOR is a not-for-profit organization that provides a trusted archive of important scholarly journals and a selection of scholarly books. Content in JSTOR spans many disciplines, primarily in the humanities and social sciences.
- eBay.comeBay Inc. is a global commerce leader that connects millions of buyers and sellers around the world.
- Entertainment WeeklyEntertainment Weekly is an American monthly entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Meredith Corporation, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular culture. The magazine debuted on February 16, 1990, in New York City.
- The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry.
- People MagazinePeople is an American weekly magazine of celebrity and human-interest stories, published by Meredith Corporation.
- Pinterest.comPinterest is an American image sharing and social media service designed to enable saving and discovery of information on the World Wide Web using images and, on a smaller scale, GIFs and videos, in the form of pinboards.
- Rolling Stone MagazineRolling Stone is an American monthly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its coverage of rock music and for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson.
- Sports IllustratedSports Illustrated is an American sports magazine owned by Authentic Brands Group, and was first published in August 1954.
American Pop by ISBN: 9780313364112Publication Date: 2008-12-30Pop culture is the heart and soul of America, a unifying bridge across time bringing together generations of diverse backgrounds. American Pop: Popular Culture Decade by Decade is the most comprehensive reference on American popular culture by decade ever assembled, beginning with the 1900s through 2008. The four-volume set examines the fascinating trends across decades and eras by shedding light on the experiences of Americans young and old, rich and poor, along with the influences of arts, entertainment, sports, and other cultural forces.
- Encyclopedia of American Studies This link opens in a new windowThe Encyclopedia of American Studies provides interdisciplinary coverage of the American experience, from pre-colonial days to the present. Over 660 articles cover areas such as history, literature, art, photography, film, architecture, urban studies, ethnicity, race, gender, economics, politics, wars, consumer culture, and global America.
- Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) This link opens in a new windowA collection of over 1000 reference resources.
- Grove Music Online (New Grove Dictionary of Music) This link opens in a new windowGrove Music Online (aka Oxford Music Online) offers a dynamic research tool combining the full text of the 29-volume print edition with the added benefit of sophisticated search capabilities, one-click cross-referencing, and an ever increasing network of web-links to musical sites around the world. Use this database to search The Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Oxford Companion to Music.
St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture by ISBN: 9781558628472Publication Date: 2013-05-07The St. James Encyclopedia Of Popular Culture, 2nd ed., updates and augments the over ten-year-old first edition. Entries cover topics and people in major areas of American popular culture including: art and performance (e.g., theatre, dance, stand-up comedy, and other live performance); film, music, print culture, social life, sports, television and radio.
- Northeast Popular & American Culture Association (NEPCA)Founded in 1974 as a professional organization for scholars living in New England and New York, NEPCA is an independently funded affiliate of the Popular Culture Association (PCA). It is comprised of a community of scholars interested in advancing research and promoting interest in the disciplines of popular and/or American culture.
- Popular Culture Association (PCA)The Popular Culture Association (PCA), formerly known as the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association, promotes the study of popular culture throughout the world through the establishment and promotion of conferences, publications, and discussion. PCA publishes the Journal of Popular Culture, which is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association. PCA also issues the Journal of American Culture that combines studies of American literature, history, and the arts, with studies of the popular, the taken-for-granted, and the ordinary pieces of American life, to produce analyses of American culture with a breadth and holism lacking in traditional American studies.
- Popular Culture Working Group - International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)The Popular Culture Working Group, a subgroup of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), aims to examine and explore the various relationships between the production, content, and consumption of popular culture from a range of perspectives that are theoretically informed and empirically grounded. Members of the Popular Culture Working Group are interested in the (academic) intersections that the study of popular culture evokes. Embracing insights from various disciplines such as cultural studies, media studies, gender and queer studies, theatre studies and so on, the Working Group engages with multifarious perspectives and the richness of popular culture as a field of study. From exploring hip hop fandom to conducting a political economic analysis of the television industry, the Working Group is interested in all facets of popular culture.