Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change

Published by New York University Press 2020

Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination

Case Studies of Creative Social Change

Edited by: Henry Jenkins , Gabriel Peters-Lazaro and Sangita Shresthova

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479891252.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Winner, 2021 Ray and Pat Browne Edited Collection Award, given by the Popular Culture Association

How popular culture is engaged by activists to effect emancipatory political change

One cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination represents a call for greater clarity about what we’re fighting for—not just what we’re fighting against.

Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes “civic imagination” as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culture—from Beyoncé to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VR—for the vernacular through which they can express their discontent with current conditions.

A young activist uses YouTube to speak back against J. K. Rowling in the voice of Cho Chang in order to challenge the superficial representation of Asian Americans in children’s literature. Murals in Los Angeles are employed to construct a mythic imagination of Chicano identity. Twitter users have turned to #BlackGirlMagic to highlight the black radical imagination and construct new visions of female empowerment. In each instance, activists demonstrate what happens when the creative energies of fans are infused with deep political commitment, mobilizing new visions of what a better democracy might look like.

Author / Editor information

Jenkins Henry :

Henry Jenkins is Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. He is the author or coauthor of twenty books including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, and By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism.Peters-Lazaro Gabriel :

Gabriel Peters-Lazaro is Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts where he researches, designs and produces digital media for innovative learning. His current research interests include civic imagination and hypercinemas. He is a practicing documentary filmmaker and his courses deal with critical media making and theory.Shresthova Sangita :

Sangita Shresthova is the Director of Research of Civic Paths@USC. Her previous books include By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (with Henry Jenkins et al.) and Is it All About Hips?: Around the World With Bollywood Dance.

Reviews

Raises timely, critical questions and provides creative answers to this current moment in US history ... The essays thus function as a handbook for how individuals and groups can find creative collaborative approaches to crystallize their aspirations for a better society. This collection is a useful resource for scholars and advanced students in media studies, critical cultural studies, social movements, and sociology.

Eva Cherniavsky, author of Neocitizenship: Political Culture after Democracy:
An exceptionally well-conceived and thoughtfully assembled collection that resuscitates a cultural studies oriented toward the popular, in service of politically urgent questions about agency and resources for imagining otherwise. Across a wide array of case studies that span genres, media, and geopolitical contexts, the entries in this volume build on each other in a rich and versatile way.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Foundations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. How Do We Imagine a Better World
1 Rebel Yell: The Metapolitics of Equality and Diversity in Disney’s Star Wars William Proctor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
2 The Hunger Games and the Dystopian Imagination Lauren Levitt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
3 Spinning H. P. Lovecraft: A Villain or Hero of Our Times Michael Saler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	51
4 Family Sitcoms’ Political Front Taylor Cole Miller and Jonathan Gray Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
5 “To Hell with Dreams”: Resisting Controlling Narratives through Oscar Season Raffi Sarkissian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	68
Part II. How Do We Imagine the Process of Change
6 Imagining Intersectionality: Girl Empowerment and the Radical Monarchs Sarah Banet-Weiser Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
7 Code for What Elisabeth Soep, Clifford Lee, Sarah Van Wart and Tapan Parikh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
8 Tracking Ida: Unlocking Black Resistance and Civic Imagination through Alternate Reality Gameplay Emilia Yang Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
9 Everyone Wants Peace? Contending Imaginaries in the Colombian Context of Peace Creation Andrea Alarcón Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Part III. How Do We Imagine Ourselves as Civic Agents
10 Learning to Imagine Better: A Letter to J. K. Rowling from Cho Chang Diana Lee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
11 Black Girls Are from the Future: #BlackGirlMagic as an Extension of the Black Radical Imagination Brooklyne Gipson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
12 “Dance to the Distortion”: The Queens of Pop vs. Donald Trump Jocelyn Kelvin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	136
13 Changing the Future by Performing the Past: Budhan Theatre and Transformation of Youth Identities Manisha Pathak-Shelat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
14 Mirroring the Misogynistic Wor(l)d: Civic Imagination and Speech Mirroring Strategy in Korea’s Online Feminist Movement Donna Do-own Kim Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
15 Reimagining the Arab Spring: From Limitation to Creativity Yomna Elsayed and Sulafa Zidani Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
16 DIY VR: Google Cardboard’s Handmade Approach to Imagining the Future of Immersive Technology Gabriel Peters-Lazaro Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
Part IV. How Do We Forge Solidarity with Others with Different Experiences Than Our Own
17 Training Activists to Be Fans: “The Moral Equivalent” of Pop Culture Stephen Duncombe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183
18 Tonight, in This Very Ring . . . Trump vs. the Media: Pro Wrestling as Articulation of Civic Imagination Sam Ford Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
19 Ms. Marvel Punches Back: Twenty-First-Century Superheroes and Alienated Citizenship Rebecca Wanzo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	206
20 For the Horde: Violent “Trolling” as a Preemptive Strike via #GamerGate and the #AltRight Joan Miller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	214
21 Communal Matters and Scientific Facts: Making Sense of Climate Change Candis Callison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
22 Imagining Resistance to Trump through the Networked Branding of the National Park Service Rachel E. Moran and Thomas J. Billard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Part V. How Do We Imagine Our Social Connections with a Larger Community
23 Moving to a Bollywood Beat, “Born in the USA” Goes My Indian Heart? Exploring Possibility and Imagination through Hindi Film Dance Sangita Shresthova Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
24 “Our” Hamilton: Reimagining the Founders for a “Diverse America” Henry Jenkins Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
25 Participatory Action in Humans of New York Paromita Sengupta Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	262
26 A Vision for Black Lives in the Black Radical Tradition Christopher Harris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
Part VI. How Do We Bring an Imaginative Dimension to Our Real-World Spaces and Places
27 “Without My City, Where Is My Past?” Ethan Zuckerman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	281
28 Reimagining and Mediating a Progressive Christian South Clint Schnekloth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
29 Tzina: Symphony of Longing: Using Volumetric VR to Archive the Nostalgic Imaginaries of the Marginal Ioana Mischie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	300
30 What’s Civic about Aztlán? Reflections on the Chican@ Promised Land Rogelio Alejandro Lopez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	347
About the Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	359

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Illustrations
- Other: 21 black and white illustrations

eBook

Published: February 4, 2020
ISBN: 9781479891252