Popular Culture

Popular culture studies have until recently been treated as more or less unworthy of serious scholarly attention. But developments in anthropology, history, communication, American studies, and literary criticism have given the study of popular culture new analytic tools and legitimacy. This article reviews some of the more noteworthy contributions to this body of scholarship. Interpretive anthropology by Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, and others, historical work influenced by the Annales school, studies of mass media, and the work of structuralists and post-structuralists from many disciplines are all discussed. This work, as well as sociological analyses of leisure, art, and mass culture are shown to have provided rich and vital insights into the social power and forms of popular culture.