High Theory/Low Culture

In High Theory/Low Culture, Mikita Brottman uses the tools of "high" cultural theory to examine many areas of today's popular culture, including style magazines, sports, shopping, tabloid newspapers, horror movies and pornography. In doing so, she not only demonstrates the practical use of "high" theory as it relates to our everyday world, but she also investigates the kinds of "low" culture that are regularly dismissed by academic scholars. Through a close examination of these cultural forms, Brottman reveals how the kinds of popular culture that we usually take for granted are, in fact, far more complex and sophisticated than is normally assumed.

Mikita Brottman is Professor of Language and Literature, Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the editor of Car Crash Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) and author of three books on the horror film.

Introduction: Popular Culture and its Critics * Bakhtin and Style Magazines * "Joyful Mayhem": Bakhtin and Football * Barthes and Tabloid Newspapers * Roland Barthes Goes Shopping * "Blue Prints and Bodies": Lacan and Pornography * Dark Homecomings: Lacan and the Horror Film * Conclusion * Bibliography