How to Use the BPCL
- Our hours are more limited than the main floor, but we're open late on Monday and Tuesday.
- We're an archive/repository, so most of our materials cannot be checked out.
- Most of our collection is not open for browsing. You need to request materials at our reference desk with your university ID or a photo ID. You will also need to fill out a request form.
- The reference collection is open for browsing! It's the best place to get started with popular culture research.
- We have a copier available for copying materials that cannot be checked out - you just need a BG1 card. A scanner is also available, but at no charge.
Need Help?
3 Ways to Contact Us
We're on the 4th floor of Jerome Library.
Email us at bpcl@libanswers.bgsu.edu.
Call us at 419-372-2450.
PCA/ACA and Popular Culture Studies: An Introduction
What does it mean to study popular culture -- especially in academics?
Beginning in the late 1960s, popular culture scholars argued that materials from everyday life (like movies, genre fiction, comic books, television, and beyond) were just as worthy of rigorous study as the more "traditional" media studied in higher education. The Browne Popular Culture Library (or BPCL) has many resources related to the history of popular culture studies movement, particularly related to the PCA/ACA as well as BGSU's own history.
Major Contributors to the Popular Culture Studies Movement
The Department of Popular Culture was established at Bowling Green State University by pioneering popular culture scholar Ray B. Browne in 1972. He also established the Ray & Pat Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies at BGSU (often called the Browne Popular Culture Library, or BPCL) in 1969. Our library has many books and manuscripts related to the foundation of popular culture studies here at BGSU, including materials written by the founding instructors and the work of the BGSU Popular Press.
The Popular Culture Association (PCA) was established in 1969 as a community of scholars and fans studying and publishing about Popular Culture. Many founding members of BGSU's Department of Popular Culture were also founding members of the PCA, including Ray Browne. The American Culture Association (ACA) joined forces with the PCA in 1979 and began hosting joint annual conferences dedicated to Popular and/or American Culture studies. The Browne Popular Culture Library serves as the repository for the PCA/ACA's organizational papers, and as such, the library has richly documented the organization's history.
Popular Culture Studies - General Resources
Pioneers in Popular Culture Studies by ISBN: 9780879727758Publication Date: 1999-06-15The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association found a fixed canon and revolutionized the study of the humanities and social sciences in the United States and around the world by making that canon fluid. The full ramifications of this revolt against traditional academia not finished nor fully understood. This is a record of the goals and accomplishments of the pioneers in this field. The essays recall the barriers that the first pop culture scholars faced and tracks their achievements.
Pursuing Popular Culture: Methods for Researching the Everyday by ISBN: 9781465290779Publication Date: 2016-11-30Popular culture surrounds us every day. Pursuing Popular Culture assists instructors by providing both a rich blend of new and relevant popular culture artifacts that appeals to diverse students and the analytical tools needed to understand these artifacts. It explains theoretical approaches and makes clear how these can be applied to better understand popular culture. Finally, the book provides straightforward approaches that allow students to think, talk, and write critically about popular culture.
Popular Culture Theory and Methodology by ISBN: 0879728701Publication Date: 2006-03-01Since its birth in the 1960s, the study of popular culture has come a long way in defining its object, its purpose, and its place in academe. Emerging along the margins of a scholarly establishment that initially dismissed anything popular as unworthy of serious study-trivial, formulaic, easily digestible, escapist-early practitioners of the discipline stubbornly set about creating the theoretical and methodological framework upon which a deeper understanding could be founded. Through seminal essays that document the maturation of the field as it gradually made headway toward legitimacy, Popular Culture Theory and Methodology provides students of popular culture with both the historical context and the critical apparatus required for further growth.
Learn More about Ray Browne
Mission underway : the history of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the popular culture movement 1967-2001 by Call Number: pop E169.12 .B747 2002ISBN: 9780879728557Publication Date: 2002
Eye on the FutureISBN: 9780879726553Publication Date: 1994This collection includes essays by scholars from around the world and five of Ray Browne's esssays which he considers signal. The purpose of this book is to chart Popular Culture Studies into the next century.
Diversity in Popular Culture Studies
The BPCL has materials examining diversity, equity, and inclusion in popular culture -- and in popular culture scholarship. Here are a few selections from our collection.
We are interested in further developing our holdings related to diversity in popular culture studies. Please contact us to inquire about a donation of relevant materials.
American Indians and Popular Culture [2 Volumes] by ISBN: 9780313379901Publication Date: 2012
Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture by ISBN: 9780313357961Publication Date: 2010
Jews and American Popular Culture [3 Volumes] by ISBN: 9780275987930Publication Date: 2006
Latinos and American Popular Culture by ISBN: 9780313392221Publication Date: 2013
Rise by ISBN: 9780358508090Publication Date: 2022
