Running from 2014 to 2020, The Pop Culture Lens was a podcast co-created and co-hosted by myself and Christopher Olson. Each episode focused on a specific popular culture text from the past and used modern theories and concepts to understand what the text’s importance in our world.

Over the course of 60+ episodes, we covered a range of topics, either by ourselves or with guests. From games to television shows, from celebrities to professional wrestling, we had a lot of great conversations. We structured the podcast so that the format loosely resembles an academic paper, but one that everyone can understand. We wanted to use the podcast to engage in public scholarship — because every person is potentially our student.

This list contains all the episodes we completed over the years…

• Easy Rider
• Freaks
• Carnival of Souls
• Bewitched
• Planet of the Apes
• The X-Files
• Godzilla
• The Last Temptation of Christ
• The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Fandom
• Mad Max
• Captain Midnight
• Star Trek
• The Dark Knight Returns
• My Little Pony
• Professional Wrestling: WWF vs. WWE
• The Exorcist
• Fan Harassment Roundtable
• Joss Whedon Roundtable
• Deltron 3030
• Wes Anderson
• The Dark Side of Fandom
• They Live
• Dungeons and Dragons
• Akira
• Avatar: The Last Airbender
• Yojimbo
• Frank Sinatra
• Videodrome
• Being John Malkovich
• Sherlock Holmes
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Robots, Anthropomorphism, and Ethics
• Hello Kitty
• ECW
• The Thing
• Doctor Who
• Transformers
• Gendering Hatsune Miku
• Podcasts as Public Intellectualism
• Past, Present, Future of Professional Wrestling
• V for Vendetta
• Why Professional Wrestling Studies
• Mental Health in Pop Culture
• A Christmas Carol
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• Rogers and Astaire
• Monopoly
• Coca-Cola
• A Christmas Story
• Mystery Science Theater 3000
• Fraggle Rock
• San Diego Comic Con
• Weird Al Yankovic
• Friends
• Frankenstein
• Satyajit Ray
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• New Japan Pro Wrestling
• Dragon Ball Z
• Douglas Adams
• Frasier
• Barbie
• The Beastie Boys

You can follow the podcast via Twitter here and join our Facebook group here. You can find us on YouTube here to watch our Pop Culture Pilgrimage series. You can email us at popculturelens@gmail.com. Feel free to leave comments and join the conversation in any of those places.

As for who we are…

Christopher J. Olson (Creative Producer) earned his Master’s from DePaul University, with research focusing on masculinity, cult movies, film adaptation, and intercultural communication. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. His blog is Seems Obvious to Me.

CarrieLynn D. Reinhard (Technical Producer) earned her PhD. from Ohio State University, with research focusing on digital communication technologies, reception studies, and gender studies. She is currently an Associate Professor at Dominican University. Her blog is Playing, with Research.