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In the late 1940s and early 1950s a new kind of detective story appeared on the scene. This was a story in which the mystery is solved by regular police detectives, usually working in teams and using ordinary police routines. This kind of narrative is customarily called the "police procedural" story. And it is the subject of this book. Though there has been numberless writers of these stories, there has never been a book of criticism before.

This collection of insightful essays by outstanding artists, anthropologists, historians, classicists and humanists was developed to broaden the study of popular culture and to provide instances of original and innovative interdisciplinary approaches.Its first purpose is to broaden the study of popular culture which is too often regarded in the academic world as the entertainment and leisure time activities of the 20th century. Second, the collection gives recognition to the fact that a number of disciplines have been investigating popular phenomena on different fronts, and it is designed to bring examples of these disciplines together under the common rubric of "popular culture." Related to this is a third purpose of providing instances of original and innovative interdisciplinary approaches. Last, the collection should be a worthwhile contribution to the component disciplines as well as to the study of popular culture.

This collection of essays probes the values in a variety of authors who have had in common the fact of popularity and erstwhile reputation. Why were they esteemed? Who esteemed them? And what has become of their reputations, to readers, to the critic himself? No writer here has been asked to justify the work of his subject, and reports and conclusions about this wide variety of creative writers vary, sometimes emphasizing what the critic believes to be enduring qualities in the subject, in several cases finding limitations in what that writer has to offer us today.

Alabamians have always been a singing people. The settlers who moved into the various sections of the state brought with them songs which reflected their national origins and geographical backgrounds, and as they spread into the hills and over the lowlands they created new songs out of the conditions under which they lived. Also, they absorbed songs from outside sources whenever these pieces could be adapted to their sentiments and ways of life. Thus, by a process of memory, composition and recreation they developed a rich body of folk songs. The following collection a part of the effort to discover and preserve these songs.

This bibliographic guide directs the reader to a prize selection of the best modern, analytical studies of every play, anonymous play, masque, pageant, and "entertainment" written by more than two dozen contemporaries of Shakespeare in the years between 1580 and 1642. Together with Shakespeare's plays, these works comprise the most illustrious body of drama in the English language.

What exactly is popular culture? How should it be studied? What forces come together in producing, disseminating, and consuming it? This collection offers responses to these and similar questions. Edited by Harold E. Hinds, Jr., Marilyn F. Motz, and Angela M. S. Nelson, the book charts some of the key turning points in the ""culture wars.

This work collects 1600 entries that define popular culture in the USA. Alphabetical entries vary from the inclusive and general (golf, domestic decorations, horror films) to specific individuals, items and events.

This study portrays individuals, organizations, and events that contributed to the development of the world movement for women's rights between 1848 and 1948.

The classic television show 'The twilight Zone' explored the possibilities inhering in the ordinary. A twilight Zone episode moved us by being poignant and intimate, rambunctious or thought provoking.

Stephen King's popularity lies in his ability to reinterpret the standard Gothic tale in new and exciting ways. He thus creates his own Gothic world and then interprets it for us. This book analyzes King's interpretations and his mastery of popular literature. The essays discuss adolescent revolt, the artist as survivor, and more.

Raymond Chandler s eminence as a mystery writer is unchallenged. Somerset Maugham and George Grella both rate him above Dashiell Hammett; Eric Partridge deems him a serious artist and a very considerable novelist, while praising him as one of the finest novelists of his time. Peter Wolfe examines the many sides of Chandler and his work his apparent will to self-destruct, his obsession with beautiful women, and his apparent brush with homosexuality and casts much new and needed light on this major American author."

While the heroes of American literature are out hunting bears, or fighting wars, the heroines are back home. These female protagonists are trapped within a social context, and so their stories tell us about life as it was actually lived. Some heroines choose to conform, others question and confront those in power. This book explores American literary heroines from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Gail Godwin. Exploring two types of heroine, the book produces a picture of an American culture that embraces the mindless child and scorns the questioning woman; one in which economic values form and deform social identity."

The essays in Vision/Re-Vision analyze in detail ten popular and important films adapted from contemporary American fiction by women, addressing the ways in which the writers'' latent or overt feminist messages are reinterpreted by the filmmakers who bring them to the screen, demonstrating that there is much to praise as well as much to fault in the adaptations and that the process of adaptation itself is instructive rather than destructive, since it enriches understanding about both media.

Raymond Chandler''s eminence as a mystery writer is unchallenged. Somerset Maugham and George Grella both rate him above Dashiell Hammett; Eric Partridge deems him "a serious artist and a very considerable novelist," while praising him as "one of the finest novelists of his time." Peter Wolfe examines the many sides of Chandler and his work-his apparent will to self-destruct, his obsession with beautiful women, and his apparent brush with homosexuality-and casts much new and needed light on this major American author.

Cemeteries are open cultural texts, available to be read and appreciated by anyone who takes the time to learn their special language. Ethnicity and the American Cemetery explores the manner in which ethnic groups in America have made their cemeteries a most eloquent voice for the expression of values and worldviews.      Contributors examine the material objects found within the cemeteries, as well as the customary practices bound to them. Contributors are from the fields of folklore, cultural history, historical archaeology, landscape architecture, and philosophy. Heavily illustrated, the volume also features an extensive annotated bibliography.

Leon Forrest: Introductions and Interpretations combines biography and various methods of critical analysis to interpret the work of this important African-American novelist and essayist, who critics have compared to Joyce, Faulkner, and Tolstoy. Highly praised by Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison and Toni Morrison, Forrest's four novels present a remarkably rich and engaging view of contemporary African-American urban culture and its roots in the southern past. The book includes a general introduction which surveys Forrest's life and presents an interpretation of the unity of his fiction, as well as individual essays offering different interpretations of Forrest's four major novels, three interviews with the writer, and a detailed chronology and bibliography.

The journals and diaries of John M. Roberts provide an intimate view of the life and dthoughts of a young schoolmaster, miller, itenerant bookseller, and farmer in centreal Ohio in a time of rising sectional crisis and Civil War.

From Edwin S. Porter to Mike Nichols, from D. W. Griffith to Steven Spielberg, American filmmakers have looked to the novel for story ideas. Different in its complexities from the classic novels of Dickens, London, and Tolstoy to which earlier filmmakers turned, the contemporary American novel poses a real challenge to the filmmaker, who must translate its occasionally unfilmable essence for a new audience. "Take Two" closely analyzes the adaptations of ten such works: "Catch-22," "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Being There," "The World According to Garp," "Sophie's Choice," "The Color Purple," "Ironweed," "Tough Guys Don't Dance," and "Billy Bathgate,"

Beginning with the emergence of commercial American music in the nineteenth century, Volume 1 includes essays on the major performers, composers, media, and movements that shaped our musical culture before rock and roll.

R. Dixon Smith has captured the enchanting story of the well known pulp writer Carl Jacobi. Jacobi wrote many fantasy and weird tales, while leading a somewhat bizarre yet magical life.

Explores snapshots, slide shows, family albums, home movies, and home videos, uncovering what people do with their photos as well as what their personal photos do for them.

Brian J. Frost presents a full-scale survey of werewolf literature covering both fiction and nonfiction works. He identifies principal elements in the werewolf myth, considers various theories on the phenomenon of shapeshifting, surveys nonfiction books, and traces the myth from its origins.

Presents interesting and unusual George Armstrong Custer legends, which include the alleged fathering of Monahseetah's Indian son; the Annie Jones story buried in the National Archives; Custer's capture of Lee's supply trains at Appomattox Court House that caused Lee to surrender - and much more.

This volume analyses in detail the adaptations of novels by eight popular writers to the screen.