Andrew Scahill (Georgetown): Serialized Killers: Prebooting Horror in Bates Motel and Hannibal. Dunja Opatic (Zagreb): Zombies in Revolt: The Violent Revolution of American Cinematic Monsters (“This paper unveils the revolutionary potential incarnated in the post-9/11 transformed figure of the cinematic zombie. It is my contention that zombies, through their cinematic (r)evolution, came to embody Deleuze and Guattari’s vision of the nomad war machine”.) Erin M. Kearns and Joseph K. Young (American): If Torture is Wrong, What About 24? Torture and the Hollywood Effect. Myc Wiatrowski (Indiana): Chuck versus the American Hero: Interrogating the Dialectic Rhetoric of Masculinities in Contemporary American Cultural Discourses. Andrew Sharp on an outsider’s guide to loving college football. From Mo’ne Davis to Michael Sam, the culture wars have invaded the sports world. Please stop trolling Jennifer Aniston's womb. It's time to end the debate over whether Angelina Jolie is a “movie star”. From Vogue, Patricia Garcia on how we’re officially in the era of the big booty. Andi Zeisler on the post-VMAs pop cultural comedown: How did we go from “FEMINIST” to the “Fappening”? Caity Weaver on how Taylor Swift and Katy Perry hate each other — a theory and timeline. Kelsey McKinney on why almost every Top 40 song is between 3 and 5 minutes long. A Whig history of pop music: J. Arthur Bloom reviews Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyonce by Bob Stanley (and more). Emily Temple on bad poets of pop culture: A brief survey. Elisabeth Donnelly on why book criticism and literary culture needs a poptimist revolution. Alyssa Rosenberg on the literary theory idea that explains how we talk about pop culture. The Naysayers: Alex Ross on Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and the critique of pop culture. Charlie Jane Anders on 7 deadly sins of talking about pop culture.
