Podcasts as Public Intellectualism

In the thirty-eighth episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson and CarrieLynn Reinhard present an academic panel from the 2017 Central States Communication Association Conference. On this panel, CarrieLynn is joined by Melody Hoffmann of the podcast Femnist Killjoys, PhD and Molly Turner of the podcast Swipe Right on Molly & Thomas. W. […]

Pop Culture Lens on Hello Kitty

In the thirty-third episode of The Pop Culture Lens podcast, Christopher Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I welcome friend of the podcast Norma Jones to discuss the venerable pop culture brand that is Hello Kitty. In this episode, Norma and I position Hello Kitty not only as a pop icon but as a heroic […]

Exorcism Cinema Book Published

Here it is! The Tensions in Exorcism Cinema project began in 2013, when my partner Christopher J. Olson (Seems Obvious to Me) and I watched the film The Possession and noted how common it seemed for women to be the victim of possession who needed to be saved through exorcism. We wondered, is that true of […]

The Pop Culture Lens on Deltron 3030

I grew up in rural Northeastern Wisconsin. On a golf course. Country music was played in our high school gym’s fitness center. Tractors would sometimes keep you from moving at good speed on county roads. Winters were not the only thing smothered in white. I grew up at the time when hip-hop and rap cultures […]

From Reaffirming to Challenging Traditions: A critical comparison of The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part II

Christopher Olson and I presented our first analysis for the exorcism cinema project at this year’s Midwest Popular Culture Association conference. We subsequently wrote the presentation as a paper that would go in a book we are developing. We just submitted the book proposal last night, and now this morning you can read this analysis […]

Feminist Tensions in The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part 2

At the Midwest Popular Culture Association‘s 2014 conference, Chris and I presented the first analysis from our exorcism cinema project. The presentation is titled: Feminist tensions in exorcism cinema: Case study analysis and comparison of The Last Exorcism and The Last Exorcism Part II. What follows are the notes for the presentation, which constitute an […]

Sir Anthony Hopkins Performs an Exorcism in The Rite

Sir Anthony Hopkins is one of those interesting actors. Best known as an incredible actor throughout his entire career, sometimes he will do movies that are, for lack of better words, slumming it – doing a movie for a paycheck. Freejack. Alexander. The Edge. The Wolfman. Red 2. To be fair, I cannot really blame […]

Women self-identifying as digital game addicts: Their interpretations of power

[This paper comes from 2007 and was completed for a qualitative methodology course at Ohio State University under the amazing Patti Lather. She encouraged us to try different methods of communication research results; so I did a comic book, which you can see here.] What is digital game addiction? A number of approaches, theories, and […]