Popular Culture

Innovative study of Taika Waititi, whose Maori and Jewish roots influence his distinctive New Zealand comedic style.

Exploration of Carrie Fisher as star, author, comedian, and iconic personification of Princess Leia.

Fairy-tale texts and images that address contemporary issues in unsettling, intersectional, and wondrous ways.

Examines Twin Peaks’s history and representations of female trauma and agency.

Explores the proliferation of true crime audiovisual texts across multiple media platforms.

A deep-dive into the practice and execution of contemporary television viewing.

Focuses on the critical and theoretical implications of adapting the Harry Potter novels to films and media.

Close readings that look for "the real Los Angeles" in a selection of contemporary movies.

Blackness Is Burning critiques the way the politics of recognition and representation appear in popular culture as attempts to "humanize" black identity through stories of suffering and triumph or tales of destruction and survival.