Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy
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Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy (ISSN 2378-2323 print, ISSN 2378-2331 online) is the first open access, peer-reviewed journal focused on the intersection of popular culture and pedagogy. While some open access journals charge a publication fee for authors to submit, Dialogue is committed to creating and maintaining a scholarly journal that is accessible to all—meaning that there is no charge for either the author or the reader.
The Journal is interested in contributions that offer theoretical, practical, pedagogical, and historical examinations of popular culture, including interdisciplinary discussions and those which examine the connections between American and international cultures. In addition to analyses provided by contributed articles, the Journal also encourages submissions for guest editions, interviews, and reviews of books, films, conferences, music, and technology.
We are excited about this new development in the studies of Popular Culture, and we look forward to your potential participation in this venture.
For more information and to submit manuscripts, email Dr Anna CohenMiller, Editor in Chief, through our Call for Papers page. For questions, please email editors@journaldialogue.org.
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Item Open Access OVID AND MEL GIBSON: POWER, VULNERABILITY, AND WHAT WOMEN WANT(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Bakewell, GeoffKnowledge of Ovid is invaluable for analyzing Nancy Meyers’s film What Women Want (2000). Advertising executive Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) is a sexist, chauvinistic ladies’ man who acquires the ability to hear what women are thinking. He is in effect a second Tiresias, and this article examines him in light of the gender-bending seer from the Metamorphoses. Meyers links Nick’s miraculous transformation to his attempt to listen to women while simultaneously cross-dressing. He subsequently becomes an intermediary between the genders, especially on sexual matters. The article further examines the Nick/Tiresias parallel in light of Ovid’s treatment of other Theban myths in Book 3. Like Pentheus, Actaeon, and Narcissus, Nick is a frequent practitioner of the voyeuristic “gaze.” And like them, he is both deeply narcissistic and sorely lacking when it comes to self-knowledge. What Women Want should, however, not be mistaken for a feminist film. For one thing, it does not situate male and female desire with respect to broader issues of power. In Metamorphoses, the figures of Semele and Caenis offer powerful testimony to the susceptibility of women to violence. Ovid emphasizes this in a way that Meyers does not, depicting lustful gods and men with a spry, subversive irony that pops up time and again in his otherwise stately hexameters. And as someone exiled from Rome to a remote town on the Black Sea, he understood better than most what it meant to be exposed and vulnerable to powerful authority. By contrast, Meyers’ film offers little in the way of genuine gender analysis; her forte seems to be decking out essentialized gender stereotypes with consumerist fluff. If we truly wish to determine What Women Want, Ovid’s critique of Tiresias proves a surer guide than Meyers’ embrace of Nick Marshall.Item Open Access 300 AND FELLINI-SATYRICON: FILM THEORY IN THE TERTIARY CLASSROOMTHIN-FILM MATERIALS(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Glass, LeannePedagogical practices in Reception-based courses on ancient Greece and Rome in film often focus on an individual film’s connections to its historical themes and meta-narrative. In contrast, courses based on Film Studies often focus pedagogical discourses on filmic techniques or the filmmaking process per se. Regularly, the two approaches remain discrete and discipline-based. In view of this disjuncture in teaching approaches and foci, the intention of this paper is to explore the benefits of film theory, including its consideration of film technique, within Classical Reception courses. Therefore, the suggestion offered herein is that more emphasis on the pedagogies of Film Studies would provide an enhanced or richer understanding of cinematic interpretations and possibilities for the student of Classical Reception and film. To illustrate this pedagogical suggestion, a discussion of mainstream, Hollywood-style cinema as depicted by Zack Snyder’s 300 (2007), in contrast to the independent auteur-driven film, Federico Fellini’s Fellini-Satyricon (1969), is the focus. These two films provide the tertiary instructor with a variety of theoretical and technical considerations that are important learning components in a course on ancient Greece and Rome in film. Not only do the films enable the instructor to discuss concepts such as the auteur but also to introduce students to topics such as art-house and Hollywood studio filmmaking, which further introduces subjects such as “high” art versus popular culture. Additionally, focusing on two different styles of filmmaking and including an acknowledgment of each filmmaker’s objectives enables the tertiary instructor to explore other fields of inquiry that cover broader cultural issues such as class, race, gender, and sexuality. This, in turn, allows for a more informed interaction on specific cultural themes between the ancient and modern worlds as interpreted by the filmmakers.Item Open Access VIDEO GAME REVIEW — FINAL FANTASY XIV: LEVEL UP FOREVER(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Cowlishaw, BrianAfter a disastrous premature release, a complete design and programming team change, and a sweeping revision of battle and interface systems that continued until the very last minute, Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV) is at last online for good now and humming along smoothly. This addition to gaming’s most legendary franchise is rich, beautiful, addictive, and just plain fun. Final Fantasy XIV is so very well put together, such a massive time suck, such a brilliant combination of story, franchise-history, and gameplay elements that upon close inspection its true nature becomes clear: FFXIV is a work of evil calculating corporate genius that will conquer us all. Think I’m exaggerating? Try this, if you’ve ever played a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game): name everything that ever annoyed you in those games – EverQuest, World of Warcraft, FFXI – then see how FFXIV systematically, craftily takes the edge off those irritating elements...Item Open Access GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEW — THE ADVENTURES OF JOHNNY BUNKO: THE LAST CAREER GUIDE YOU’LL EVER NEED(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Weiner, Robert G.In the world of higher education, the last 10 years have seen an explosion in the scholarly study of sequential art, sometimes dubbed comics studies. The present number of courses related to comics is probably triple what it was 20 years ago: courses from the freshman to the graduate level, courses in departments as varied as History, Sociology, Film, Gender and Race Studies, Communication, Art, Electronic Media, and Philosophy. The study of comics is where the study of films was 30 years ago. The rise in scholarly monographs has exploded, and there are numerous academic journals devoted to the subject with more popping up all the time. Comic studies, currently, is a popular topic for academics to discuss, teach, and write about...Item Open Access WOUNDS THAT WILL NOT HEAL: HEROISM AND INNOCENCE IN SHANE AND THE ILIAD(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Rubino, Carl A.George Stevens’ film Shane, which dates from 1953, remains an especially successful version of the heroic paradigm that is established in Homer’s Iliad. Just as Achilles, the hero of Homer’s poem, considers abandoning the war at Troy in favor of a long and uneventful life at home, the film’s mysterious hero makes a futile attempt to abandon his violent past for a “normal life” as an ordinary farmer in the American west. In the end, however, the threatened status of the domestic world Shane is trying to enter makes it impossible for him to renounce his heroic nature and violent past. Because he wishes to save his newfound friends, Shane, like Achilles, is compelled to become a hero once again. As a result, once Shane succeeds in rescuing his friends from danger, he is compelled to leave the community he yearned to join and for whose sake he risked his life. This paper examines some of the ways in which the film’s portrayal of the hero, Shane, echoes that of the Iliad. In doing so, it attempts to cast light on how the great classical texts continue to exert a powerful influence on modern works of art and on how those modern works both embody the classical heritage and also adapt it to fit the needs of their own times. The paper also devotes some attention to the highly charged issues of “highbrow” and “lowbrow” culture and to the considerable benefits of using films to bring the classics alive for students of today.Item Open Access EXPERIMENTS IN LOVE: LONGUS’ DAPHNIS & CHLOE AND HENRY DE VERE STACPOOLE’S THE BLUE LAGOON(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Day, KirstenDespite a chronological gulf of nearly two thousand years, the second century C.E. Greek romance writer Longus and the early twentieth century Irish novelist Henry de Vere Stacpoole were prompted to produce their best works by a similar motive: an urge to explore the world, and particularly the phenomenon of love and desire, from a standpoint of complete innocence. Although the resulting novels, Daphnis & Chloe and The Blue Lagoon respectively, have no evident direct connection, they exhibit surprising similarities not only in plot, setting, and characterization, but also in the values, perspectives, and worldviews they advance. The striking intersections between these two chronologically and geographically diverse works offer us a lens for examining persistent notions of “natural” versus learned masculinity and femininity, for exploring the dynamics behind patriarchal power structures, and for scrutinizing how these issues relate to ideas about the value and merits of civilization. Moreover, analysis of the features common to Longus’ work and the Blue Lagoon narrative, particularly as it is manifested in Randal Kleiser’s 1980 film adaptation of the novel, can serve as a useful pedagogical tool as well. By utilizing an accessible product of popular culture to bring a little-known ancient Greek novel to life, this comparison helps to drive home the persistence of ideologies and power structures that initially seem remote and thus suggests to today’s students the continuing relevance of works from classical antiquity in our modern world in a way that looking at the ancient work in isolation – or even in conjunction with its more direct descendants – cannot.Item Open Access THE ODYSSEY AND ITS ODYSSEY IN CONTEMPORARY TEXTS: RE-VISIONS IN STAR TREK, THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE, AND THE PENELOPIAD(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Economou Green, MaryHomer’s The Odyssey is the archetypal quest story. The dialogue began with Homer, and contemporary texts and popular culture media have continued the tradition of deconstructing and recreating stories, addressing issues related to the human psyche. As Hardwick and Stray note, the relationship between ancient and modern is “not merely inherited but constantly made and remade,” one that we see in the following varied genres and versions that retell the Odyssean myth, relating re-visions of characters, relationships, structures, and themes. The original Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonais” is an allegory of the Odyssean quest for human knowledge, while Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife presents a modern magical story of love, and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad is a story of “slippery truth,” debunking the heroic and romantic. Beyond instilling aesthetic appreciation in our students, Odyssean stories indeed offer a plethora of rich pedagogical material. A comparative approach to the texts offers our students the ability to further their own analytical and critical insights. As the stories deal with issues of identity, self-knowledge, sense of place in the cosmos, and human relationships and communities, they provide perception of psychological and philosophical insights into both our human-ness and our present preoccupations in our world. Rather than view the Odyssean epic as “exclusive,” a constructive pedagogical approach is to explore the blurred spaces and/or gaps between the past and the present. Thus while texts are set in different and distinct times and spaces with varied purpose, story, and genre, what makes classroom discussions vital and vibrant are the similar issues raised, which explore our constant yearning to discover our human-ness, and following that, examination of the meaning of love, war, fate, meaning of life, and death, quintessential matters that are transcultural, universal, and timeless.Item Open Access THE LABYRINTH OF MEMORY: IPHIGENEIA, SIMONIDES, AND CLASSICAL MODELS OF ARCHITECTURE AS MIND IN CHRIS NOLAN’S INCEPTION (2010)(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Haller, BenjaminChris Nolan’s 2010 film Inception uses architecture as a language whereby to comment upon the relationship of the protagonist, Dom Cobb, with his deceased wife, Mal. This paper argues that three classical models – Homer’s tomb of Myrhine described in the Iliad, Iphigeneia’s dream of the collapse of the house of Agamemnon in Euripides’s Iphigeneia Among the Taurians, and Simonides’ Memory Palace mnemonic technique – manifest parallel uses of architecture as a metaphor for mind. The film identifies each of its main characters – Dom, Mal, and Ariadne – with different architectures and with different modes of cognition. The Mal who haunts Dom’s dreams is explicitly identified as a force in his subconscious, and Nolan associates her with amorphous architectures and spaces – foremost with the formless viscosity of water. Dom himself is her antithesis, identified with linear architectures like palaces and straight-line mazes. Ariadne is identified with circular mazes and proves capable of mediating between Dom and his memories of his deceased wife in order to help him successfully to complete his greatest heist. This paper agues that Inception‘s implied tripartite division of the self – with Dom representing the analytical conscious mind, Ariadne the intuitive mind, and Mal the dangerous depths of the subconscious – draws upon pop-Jungian formulations of the relation between conscious and subconscious modes of cognition in order to critique a set of gender norms often associated with male protagonists in the genre of the hard-boiled detective story. Inception is anticipated in subverting a dominant narrative of male heroes rescuing damaged female beloveds by the Classical models listed above; an examination of each of these passages helps to illuminate Nolan’s own interrogation of the “damaged beloved” narrative in ways which can be fruitfully used by secondary and college-level teachers in class discussion and writing assignments to promote empathy and more healthy relationships among their students.Item Open Access THESEUS LOSES HIS WAY: VIKTOR PELEVIN’S HELMET OF HORROR AND THE OLD LABYRINTH FOR THE NEW WORLD(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Traweek, AlisonThis article explores the relationship between the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, and Viktor Pelevin’s 2006 adaptation of it, The Helmet of Horror, particularly how it can serve as a case study for the nature and significance of adaptation. It examines the idea of memory, a central theme of the novel, and considers how three aspects of the original myth – the Minotaur, Ariadne’s thread, and the labyrinth itself – shape and inform Pelevin’s retelling. Each of these is unique to this myth in antiquity, and together, they structure the story. Each is also fundamentally connected to the idea of memory: the Minotaur is a living reminder of Pasiphae’s transgression, Ariadne’s thread is the mnemonic that allows Theseus to escape, and the labyrinth is a structure whose very nature is designed to challenge memory by creating confusion. In Pelevin’s hands, the Minotaur is no longer a reminder of the union of human and beast but of human and machine; its head is a helmet that runs on reiterations of the past. Ariadne’s thread is re-imagined as a literal thread on an Internet forum where the characters discuss their situation and report their activities as they work towards escape. Finally, Pelevin’s novel multiplies the power of the labyrinth to enforce forgetfulness by structuring the story with a series of recursive metaphorical labyrinths, each of which suppresses memory in a different way. Pelevin’s novel dramatizes how both individuals and cultures use the past to make meaning in the present and thus illustrates the appeal of adaptations. The article closes with some suggestions for inviting students to reflect on the idea of adaptation, such as creating their own retellings, as well as for using the labyrinth as a theme for a larger study module.Item Open Access O HOMER, WHERE ART THOU?: TEACHING THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY THROUGH POPULAR CULTURE(Dialogue, 1(1), 2014) Young, MalloryLike so many of my academic colleagues, I spend an inordinate amount of time lamenting our students’ lack of engagement, discipline, and preparation. The problems are naturally exacerbated when the subject is literature and the literature in question is, by its nature, far removed in time and place from students’ daily lives. At the same time, requirements to study literature have become compressed, if not eliminated entirely. Ancient Greek works, in particular, seem to pose special problems for unmotivated or unprepared students. As our students become less likely to have a prior context from which to approach ancient texts, the challenge of introducing those texts in a one or two-semester Western literature course becomes greater. And yet, how can we omit foundational works like the Iliad and the Odyssey from a general education? If we do include them, how do we remain true to the works while spending only two or three weeks considering them? Even after decades of teaching, I have not, I admit, fully managed to answer that question to my satisfaction. But I will share two approaches – one to the Iliad, the other to the Odyssey – that can be used successfully, I believe, in undergraduate survey courses on Western literature and culture. The two interpretive strategies, while different, share two central elements: each is based on a single theoretical framework that is easily accessible to lower-level undergraduate students, and both incorporate popular culture. In the case of the Iliad, I have used the twentieth-century lens of the Vietnam War provided through Jonathan Shay’s study, Achilles in Vietnam. For the Odyssey, I have drawn on two contrasting movies, each focused on an Odysseus-like character placed in a twentieth-century setting: Ulee’s Gold and O Brother, Where Art Thou?Item Open Access “INDY CLASSICAL INNOVATION: YMUSIC” AT USC’S SOUTHERN EXPOSURE NEW MUSIC SERIES(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Kay, Peter B.Quiet fills the concert hall. A young man, about 30 years old, stands in front of the audience. With him are a number of musicians in what appears to be a traditional ensemble, but with a few interesting and unusual changes. The young man is stylishly dressed, his clothes a mix of fashion and formality. His hair is a bit long and a little unruly, but this is the trend for young artists and musicians. The audience, mostly made up of 20-, 30-, and 40-somethings, do not seem to notice these small departures from tradition. They are simply eager to hear what this new composer has written...Item Open Access M. J. TROW. A BRIEF HISTORY OF VAMPIRES(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Do, MyhaFrom the works of Anne Rice and Stephen King to films on vampires and the walking dead, the appeal of vampirism has become a cultural phenomenon in the United States, especially to young people. In the modern era where the typical American family is broken and where marriages can last a few days to weeks, troubled maturing young people find little comfort in a society that represents separation. In contrast, vampires, as the living undead, provide stability and lasting relationships, because they live forever and thus their love is consequentially eternal. A Brief History of Vampires is an inspiring book that attempts to explain this resurgent phenomenon as M.J. Trow links fictional Gothic beings to actual people...Item Unknown A FIELD GUIDE TO TEACHING AGENCY AND ETHICS: THE WEST WING AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Mobley, Kayce; Fisher, SarahThough political science undergraduate courses reflect a rich theoretical tradition, they typically lack opportunities for students to express intangible concepts through the interpretation of creative works, a standard exercise of critical analysis. Educators can address this dearth in many ways, such as through utilization of popular culture texts. We employ the television series The West Wing to ground debates in American politics, specifically American foreign policy. Although this show has been off air since 2006, Netflix and Amazon have recently released the entire series for streaming, significantly reducing the hassle and monetary cost of using this source in the classroom. Using The West Wing as our guide, we enhance political science pedagogy using agency, structure, and ethics as our guiding concepts. Keywords: politics, television, The West Wing, foreign policy, decision making, agency, structure, ethics, critical analysis, United StatesItem Unknown THE GENTLE TONGUE: HOW LANGUAGE AFFECTED THE WORLD OF MISTER ROGERS’ NEIGHBORHOOD(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Danielson, LouisaAlthough new episodes of the program ceased to be recorded in 2004, the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood show is still recalled by many today as an iconic childhood staple—the right show to watch if you are a young child or a parent looking for something wholesome to view on television. This is as Fred Rogers, the creator of the program, wished, but what exactly were the goals behind the Mister Rogers’ program? What were the shaping forces that inspired Rogers’ theory for children’s educational television? These are questions explored in “The Gentle Tongue: How Language Affected the World of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” Research for this article is compiled from Rogers’ book on parenting philosophies, dialogue excerpts from the television program, and published interviews with Rogers. Comparative information has also been provided by research from humor development, childhood imagination development, and popular television studies. Thoughtful exploration of this data can explain how and why Fred Rogers was inspired to create a program that demonstrated love and care towards television’s youngest viewers. Although Mister Rogers may be leaving the airwaves, its effects can still be seen in today’s modern television programming. Key Words: Adult, Child, Television, Language, Make-Believe, Play, Responsibility, Care, Puppets, HumorItem Unknown “CAN YOU IMAGINE, A REAL, LIVE INDIAN RIGHT HERE IN WALNUT GROVE?”: AMERICAN INDIANS IN TELEVISION ADAPTATIONS OF LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Fatzinger, Amy S.Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House novels have been adapted into two major television series: Michael Landon’s well-known series, which aired from 1974-1983, and a more recent Disney adaptation, which aired as a miniseries in 2005. The premier movie, which preceded Landon’s series, and the Disney miniseries both focus on the events in Wilder’s 1935 novel, Little House on the Prairie, which covered the period from 1869-1871 during which the Ingalls family lived among the Osage in Kansas Indian Territory. Wilder’s portrayal of the Osage in her novel is controversial, but she does also include some literary devices that allow for a slightly more complex reading of the relationships between Native and non-Native settlers on the Kansas prairie. While adaptations of novels sometimes revise problematic or controversial content to better suit the perspectives of modern viewing audiences, the adaptations of Wilder’s novels alter the Native content in ways that do not move it beyond the realm of stereotypes. Both television adaptations present Native themes in ways that initially heighten the sense of fear associated with Native characters, then resolve the issues through happy endings and heavy-handed moral lessons that diminish the seriousness of the historic tensions between Native and non-Native residents of the frontier. The changes made to Native themes in the adaptations do, however, call attention to the challenges associated with adapting autobiographical and historical content and raise questions about how to prioritize more respectful portrayals of Native people when working with people’s life stories. Keywords: Little House on the Prairie, American Indian Studies, Pioneer Literature, Historical Fiction, Adaptation Studies, Television StudiesItem Unknown GIRLS, GUNS, AND ZOMBIES: FIVE DIMENSIONS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING IN THE WALKING DEAD(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Neely, AnthonyRooted in sociocultural theory, this article utilizes a conceptual framework derived from Alexander, Schallert, and Reynolds’ four topographical dimensions of learning: who of learning, what of learning, where of learning, and when of learning. Situated learning (Lave and Wenger) is presented as a fifth dimension to address how learning occurs in communities of practice absent of formal schooling. Content analysis (Elo and Kyngass) is used to analyze a teaching and learning event from an episode of The Walking Dead based on the five topographical dimensions of learning listed above. Findings provide insights for pedagogical application for grades 7-12 by addressing the potential benefits of contextualized and scaffolded situated learning activities, gender equity, and authentic high-stress high-risk tasks in secondary level curriculum design. Keywords: Popular Culture, Teaching Methods, Gender Equity, The Walking Dead, Socioculturalism, Situated Learning, Apocalyptic Media, Interdisciplinary Research, Communities of Practice, Contextualized CurriculumItem Open Access LEARNING ABOUT PEOPLE, PLACES AND SPACES OF THE WORLD THROUGH INFORMAL PEDAGOGY: SOCIO-(INTER)CULTURAL CONSTRUCTIONS AND CONNECTIONS TO POPULAR CULTURE(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Nguyen, Shelbee R.This article explores how adult and higher education (AHE) learners utilize popular culture as an informal pedagogical resource when learning about different cultures and preparing for international learning abroad or study abroad. Specifically, this case study research is concerned with what particular sources of popular culture serve as informal pedagogy and how these shape AHE learners’ cultural perceptions about study abroad to a specific international destination. A review of current literature at the intersection of popular culture and study abroad identifies both the need to include adult and higher education learners as well as the ubiquitous nature of learning through popular culture outside the classroom. Popular culture’s function as a source of informal pedagogy and how informal learning relates to AHE learning are synthesized in the literature. The theoretical frame from which this research was undertaken is provided to highlight the innately social process of popular media consumption. The researcher offers methodological considerations about participants, data collection and analysis with findings from two different embedded cases to reveal ways AHE learners use and are influenced by popular culture characters, plot and themes. Additional discussion about cultural understandings and motivations to participate in international education or study is also highlighted throughout the findings. AHE learners’ personal hobbies and interests as well as personal goals play an important role in shaping the type of experience desired. Implications and directions for future research underscore the complex and multifaceted nature of popular culture and media to generate support in this research area for educators, scholars and practitioners in the field of international education. Keywords: Informal learning, Popular Culture, Adult and Higher Education, Study Abroad, Perception, Motivation, International Education, Culture and Language Exchange, Business Education, Multicultural Education, Sociocultural LearningItem Open Access SURVIVOR SKILLS: AUTHENTICITY, REPRESENTATION AND WHY I WANT TO TEACH REALITY TV(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Friedman, MayThis paper will consider the pedagogical potential in constructing a class on the phenomenon of reality television by exploring the possibilities and pitfalls of a shared viewing of these “texts” as a site of critical engagement with popular culture. A course on reality TV would require a deep analysis of the topics of representation, authenticity, and audience reactions. The course I would like to teach would also consider the ways that reality TV is simultaneously emblematic of, and contributes to, the foregrounding of neo-liberal discourses. This paper addresses some of the pedagogical implications of an analysis of reality TV by considering the above themes in greater detail. I see the creation of a post-secondary class on reality TV as pedagogically radical in both form and content, as a site where new ideas can be applied to shifting and unstable terrain. In challenging the primacy of high culture as the only worthy area of analysis, in viewing one of the most debased forms of popular culture as academically rich, I hope to help my undergraduate students build bridges between what they think about in school and what they do at home. I see such a class as an exciting explosion of the binaries of high and low culture, public and private space, and truth and fiction. Keywords: Reality Television, Engaged Pedagogy, Popular Culture, Representation, Authenticity, Neoliberalism, Social Work, Critical Discourse AnalysisItem Open Access REFLECTION: THE TWENTY-LINE TRAP? SHAKESPEARE ENACTED BY YOUNG WOMEN(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Reed, ShannonProfessional actors assemble a toolkit of monologues with an obligatory “Shakespearean monologue” of around 20 lines. But female actors are at a disadvantage, with less than 150 women in a repertoire of over 1100 characters in Shakespeare’s 37 or more plays. Young female1 actors are even more at a loss, if the powerful and complex older female roles are removed, leaving only a few dozen appropriate speeches. What effect does this limited canon have on such actors? Here, I reflect upon my own participant observer experience as a young woman actor, who received the bulk of my early training as a student in a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre: Acting and Directing program at an American university in the 1990’s. I also present research, accomplished through interviews with two other women who also played Shakespeare’s young female characters, in which they reflect on their casting, rehearsal and production experiences in the roles, as well as how their subsequent choices of theatrical work were influenced by such formative experiences. Their words point to the dual, contradictory nature of this limited canon, proving both its limitations and opportunities. Findings explore what these experiences suggest for pedagogical changes in teaching Shakespeare. Keywords: Theater, Shakespeare, Feminism, Academic Theatre Training, Girls, Girl Actors, British Theatre, American Theatre, Renaissance Theatre, PedagogyItem Open Access APPLICATIONS IN THE CLASSROOM: HARDLY ELEMENTARY — FRONTIERS FOR FRESHMAN COMPOSITION WITH CONAN DOYLE’S A STUDY IN SCARLET(Dialogue, 2(1), 2015) Donley, Kate M.Three recent television and film adaptations testify to the continuing popularity of Arthur Conan Doyle’s consulting detective Sherlock Holmes. The fast-paced novella that introduces detective duo Holmes and Watson, A Study in Scarlet involves some astonishing elements, and not just in the plot. With just a little probing, collegiate readers may wonder whether Conan Doyle plagiarized his most famous character, invented forensic science, despised Mormons, and accidentally wrote a Western. The novel was adapted as A Study in Pink, the first episode of the BBC’s series Sherlock created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Their vision of Holmes set in present-day London will thrill students and also leave them wondering what happened to the second half of the novel. Beyond the predictable (yet exciting) classroom discussion topic of adaptation, A Study in Scarlet presents a rich context for research and discussion by challenging students’ modern-day notions of genre, historical truth, political correctness, and academic credibility. Although this novel is well-suited for high-level secondary or freshman composition classes, advanced students of English literature will find much to explore. This book analysis contains a summary of A Study in Scarlet with explication of its literary features and associated pedagogical issues for the freshman composition class. Topics for more advanced students are also identified. Instructors can make a free virtual casebook of ancillary readings with the Internet links provided. Keywords: college composition, first-year writing, freshman composition, Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet, detective fiction, adaptation, pseudo-scholarship, fanfiction