By Todd O. Williams The videogame Horizon Zero Dawn contains many poems, which enrich the game through their thematic alignment with several of the game’s major themes including nature, loss, and coping. More specifically, the poems resonate with the guiding statement the writers of Horizon followed by representing “love passed down across generations.” Examining selected poems from the game reveals that Horizon functions as an … Continue reading The Use of Poetry in Horizon Zero Dawn

By Kevin Greene Abstract: This paper addresses fundamental misunderstandings of the Islamic Revolutions in Iran in the 1970s. Considering contemporary ideological material and Western media coverage of these events from 1978 to the present, the revolution was the result of a number of social factors, not a monolithic event forwarded by extremists. Given the wide array of ideological factions, the revolution became inherently performative; this … Continue reading The Revolution Was Televised: Reimagining the Islamic Revolution as a Primetime Performance

By Noah McLaughlin Kennesaw State University nmclaugh@kennesaw.edu In Sciamma’s 2014 Bande de filles, cinematic articulations of space have multiple significant functions. Drawing from Augé’s “non-place” and Deleuze’s “any-space-whatever,” a close reading of Bande de filles’ cinematography synthesizes the film’s blend of banlieue cinema, bildungsroman, and superhero archetypes with notions about gender and identity within an anticolonial critique. This synthesis, in turn, contributes to our appreciation … Continue reading Spaces of Critique & Transformation in Bande de filles

By Emily O’Malley and Paul Reich Abstract Both HBO’s Westworld (2016) and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale (2017) feature white female protagonists who find themselves in societies that enslave and subject them to horrific harm.  Although these near-future, alternative Americas imagine worlds free of systematic racism, the show’s creators employ the features and stylistic elements of 19th century slave narratives and recast the central roles with … Continue reading “A Prison of Our Own Sins”: The Unacknowledged Legacy of 19th Century Slave Narratives in HBO’s Westworld and Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Popular Culture Review’s first issue of 2021 comes at a time when many of us are reeling. The cover image for this issue reflects this, as many of us feel emotionally drained past the point of exhaustion. Many of us are numb. Yet I hope that the image also reflects the possibility of hope – that from this darkness, we can again begin to feel … Continue reading Winter 2021 Issue – Editor’s Note

Black Lives Matter and Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection. Fernando Orejuela and Stephanie Shonekan. Indiana University Press, 2018. 144 pp. ISBN: 978-0253038418. Over the past couple years, the Black Lives Matter movement has emerged. Gaining lots of media attention, the movement is led by African Americans who are tired of the murder of innocent blacks and the general racial inequality that still occurs in the United … Continue reading Review of Black Lives Matter and Music: Protest, Intervention, Reflection

In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization. Gilbert, Helen H., JD Phillipson, Michelle H. Raheja, Editors. Liverpool University Press, 2020. 304 pp. ISBN: 978-1786940346 The world of Indigenous cultures is an untapped trove of unique insights into the human experience. Although native societies all across the globe have already conceded vast amounts of land and other natural resources to more powerful colonizers, relatively little is known about … Continue reading Review of In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization

Nick Yablon, Remembrance of Things Present: The Invention of the Time Capsule. University of Chicago Press, 2019. 407 pp. ISBN: 978-0226574134.  Historians usually trace the origins of the time capsule to the one that Westinghouse Electric promoted at the 1938 World’s Fair in New York. This sleek metal cannister stuffed with human ephemera, weighing eight hundred pounds and resembling a ballistic missile, was lowered into … Continue reading Review of Remembrance of Things Present: The Invention of the Time Capsule