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 THE TIN WOODMAN, CAPTAIN FYTER, AND CHOPFYT: L. FRANK BAUM’S PORTRAYAL OF BODY IMAGE AND PROSTHESES IN THE WAKE OF WORLD WAR I(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Gethins, MarieNineteenth and early twentieth-century children’s literature frequently depicts characters with disabilities as flat stereotypes — villains or saintly invalids. L. Frank Baum’s The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918) provides a sharp contrast to these typical portrayals, as well as contemporary “socio-cultural” beliefs on physical normalcy and sense of self. Written as the U.S. entered World War I and details of trench warfare reached the home-front, it presents an interesting exploration of society’s response to physical disability and prostheses. In addition, it highlights the psychological devastation associated with body changes. During Baum’s formative years, disabled Civil War veterans returned to New York state in large numbers. Initially respected for their service and their subsequent loss, Civil War veterans gradually found themselves the subject of resentment across much of the United States. Many cities passed ordinances prohibiting the disabled from frequenting public areas to avoid “disturbing” the populace. Baum’s portrayal of three characters contrasts with contemporary “socio-cultural” mores. In The Tin Woodman of Oz, the Tin Woodman and Captain Fyter, who progressively dismembered themselves and replaced body parts with tin prostheses, are shown in a positive light. When these “tin twins” Captain Fyter and the Tin Woodman encounter Chopfyt — a man assembled from a combination of their flesh body parts — the three characters reflect on what constitutes physical normalcy, as well as the value and beauty of prostheses. Through Chopfyt, the psychological effects of limb loss and the concept of usefulness come to the fore. This paper considers the influences the Civil War and World War I amputees may have played on Baum’s writing of The Tin Woodman of Oz and what cultural lessons underlie his characterizations of prostheses, physical normalcy, and what constitutes a sense of self. Keywords: Disability, prostheses, amputee, Oz, World War 1, physical normalcyItem Open Access FIRST-PERSON ADOLESCENT STORYTELLERS AND VIRGINIA TUFTE’S ARTFUL SENTENCES: SYNTAX AS STYLE(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Leonard, KristinIn Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, Virginia Tuft illustrates how grammar, word choice, and syntax strategies help to generate the perfect juxtaposition of words and punctuation that will make each sentence pop (Clark). Tufte’s handbook includes examples from a variety of texts; for example, John Keats, Andy Warhol, Ernest Hemingway, Julia Child’s The Joy of Cooking, and more. However, there is a noticeable lack of adolescent narrators in Tufte’s smorgasbord of literature examples. This lack is significant, due to the popularity of first-person narrators in adolescent literature. Therefore, in order to analyze whether Tufte’s syntax strategies can also be applied to first-person adolescent narrators, two contrasting teenage protagonists were examined: Matilda, in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever 1793, and Saba, in Moira Young’s Blood Red Road. The final analysis illustrates that Virginia Tufte’s syntax strategies, in Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style, are equally effective when applied to first-person adolescent storytellers, particularly strategies that include verbs, fragments, and the creation of cohesiveness. Keywords: adolescent fiction, grammar, first-person narration, Virginia Tuft, creative writing strategies, young adult fictionItem Open Access FINDING THE SACRED IN THE PROFANE: THE MARDI GRAS IN BASILE, LOUISIANA(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Guglielmi, LucIn Basile, a small community in Southwest Louisiana, there would not be any Mardi Gras without Ash Wednesday and vice-versa. Most of the people in Basile speak of Ash Wednesday when defining the Mardi Gras as there is a reciprocal spiritual relationship between Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday. The people from Basile, therefore, in giving equal spiritual value to these two feasts, assign a liturgical value to Mardi Gras because they need, and will admit this freely, to have a good Mardi Gras in order to enter into the sacred season of Lent. Mardi Gras performs a function that is similar to the other religious feasts which have been established to break the monotony of the liturgical cycle. Folklorists who have studied Mardi Gras in Basile support the idea that it is the same people dancing, singing, eating and drinking that one finds at Mardi Gras who will kneel before the priest to receive their ashes (Ware 1994, Lindhal 1996a, Mire). The Church tolerates and/or accepts the Carnival as a necessity. By accepting the carnival within its liturgical time, the Church exerts better control over that time of the year. Keywords: folklore, Mardi Gras, Southern, sacred, profaneItem Open Access RENEGADE OR PARAGON?: CATEGORIZING NARRATIVE CHOICE IN VIDEO GAME STORYLINES(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Oliver, GrahamChoices made during video game gameplay set the stories told in that media apart from other media. Narrative-affecting choices have existed since the earliest games, from character creation in role-playing games to performance-based narrative changes in Metroid to morality-based choices in Ogre Battle. In the contemporary gaming landscape, some games derive a significant portion of their gameplay from character decisions: exploration, dialogue options, quick-time event reactions, etc. In this article, I give a history and breakdown of how choices have existed and evolved in gaming narratives since their inception. I then propose three categories for significant narrative choices: aesthetic, social, and reflective. The aesthetic choice is one influencing surface-level elements of the game. An example is Kentucky Route Zero, wherein dialogue choices largely serve to fill in the motivation and background of the characters while not actually influencing the narrative trajectory of the game. The social choice is one which impacts the characters’ relationship with one another. Perhaps the most well-known social choices are Dungeons and Dragons character alignments, Fallout’s Karma system, or Mass Effect’s renegade versus paragon. The reflective choice is one that asks the player to consider the gameplay or the ramifications of the decision. Spec Ops: The Line, to widespread acclaim and criticism, centered its story on calling into question the typical structure of kill-everything-that-moves first-person shooters. While these categories do not account for every possible decision in a game, they work toward a structure that will allow for a more nuanced dissection of gaming narratives. By focusing on choice, it highlights an area of storytelling that gaming is constantly pushing the boundaries of. Keywords: game studies, narrative studies, player studiesItem Open Access TRIPLE THREAT OR TRIPLE OPPORTUNITY: WHEN A POP CULTURE COURSE GOES ONLINE AT A COMMUNITY COLLEGE(Dialogue, 7(2), 2020) Eaton, Lance; Rockey, AlexTeaching popular culture comes with many opportunities and challenges in a traditional classroom, but equally interesting and valuable are the possibilities that teaching such a course online can provide. This article explores how “Popular Culture in the US,” an online course at a community college, embraces some key attributes of the digital world such as multimodal communication and Web 2.0 interactivity. Evolved from a face-to-face community college course, the online version has increasingly developed to move from an instructor-centered to a student-centered approach that relies upon various engagement strategies. By using student choice, OER-enabled pedagogy, and constructivist approaches, the instructor engages students by leveraging the Internet to educate students, empower them as creators of content, and support critical participation in popular culture. The article illustrates how teaching within the online space can enhance teaching and learning, particularly for courses that have a disciplinary focus on popular culture and media. Keywords: pop culture, online course, constructivism, community college, universal design for learning, open pedagogy, open educational resources, interaction, multimodalItem Open Access THE BATMAN COMES TO CLASS: POPULAR CULTURE AS A TOOL FOR ADDRESSING REFLEXIVE PAIN(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Hammonds, Kyle A.; Anderson-Lain, KarenIn this essay, a case study approach is used to examine ways in which comics and graphic narratives can be used to provide a context within which undergraduate students may theorize about culture. The authors employed Batman: Year One as an organizing narrative for students to theorize about culture and communication. Specifically, students were challenged to (1) understand applications of communication theory in the context of graphic narrative, (2) use graphic narrative as a space for theorizing about communication and culture outside of comics, (3) utilize narrative theory to extrapolate meaning from complex, multi-modal forms of communication. While this case study is situated within the Communication Discipline, the project may be customized to fit courses related to Rhetoric (English), Narrative Theory, or Critical/Cultural Studies. Keywords: Popular Culture Pedagogy; Batman; Graphic Narratives; Comics; Narrative Theory; Critical/Cultural Studies, CommunicationItem Open Access PEDAGOGY, IDEOLOGY, & COMPOSITION: IS THERE A BETTER WAY TO TEACH?(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Guydish Buchholz, ErinWhile academia tends to focus on differentiating various groups of students, prioritizing similar learning practices can have surprising and potentially transforming outcomes. In classrooms that are often filled with students who do not quite comprehend the significance of critical thinking processes or practices, the role they will play as global citizens, or why studying abstract topics is necessary, interchanging effective pedagogy from one classroom or student type to another may result in more engaged and productive learning. Additionally, students may mature and create their personas more clearly when classes interject ‘basic’ classroom practices such as modeling respect while discussing politics or more ‘advanced’ techniques like scaffold writing and hands-on activities. If instructors are more reflective as they interact with students as adult learners, their lessons may provide chances to explore identities, ideologies, and a deeper comprehension of the impacts of their actions within and on society. This article will discuss a combination of personal experience and research-based pedagogy with the aim of illustrating useful ways to stimulate students’ critical thinking abilities. While many educators and recent assessments have focused on significant learning experiences and valuable course outcomes, this research focuses on creating practices to serve students better within writing courses, general education, and in their future careers. Interchanging conversational practices, writing activities, and research processes across classrooms with specific student demographics (such as developmental learners, international students, non-traditional students, and traditional college learners) may be key in helping students understand how their academic education could serve them more usefully in their post-graduation communities. Keywords: pedagogy, reflective practices, diverse learners, student-centered learning, general educationItem Open Access A GAZE OF CRUELTY, DEFERRED: ACTUALIZING THE FEMALE GAZE IN CATE SHORTLAND’S BERLIN SYNDROME (2017)(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Chuk, NatashaAustralian director Cate Shortland’s dramatic thriller Berlin Syndrome (2017) follows the conventions of the genre involving a psychologically unstable male perpetrator and his female victim, thus could hinge on patriarchal control. Instead, based on a close reading of feminist film scholar Laura Mulvey’s theoretical definition of the former, Shortland’s cinematic apparatus can be read as an inverse of the male gaze, a type of systematic ‘female gaze’. This observation both warrants clarification of the term and concept behind the female gaze and suggests a pressing need to re-evaluate the language of cinema and its habitually damaging depictions of women. In doing so, it may encourage a counter cinema in which such cinematic language is more readily accessible and asserted from a non-male perspective. This essay addresses the question of the female gaze, a term that refers, in fuzzy terms, to the subversion of the male gaze in cinema and elsewhere. To do this, key points in Laura Mulvey’s argument are unpacked in reference to other examples of male-on-female on-screen violence — a kind of accepted and frequently employed gaze of cruelty extending Antonin Artaud’s celebration of the theater of cruelty. All of this is in support of the argument and demonstration of how Shortland upends key cinematic and genre conventions throughout Berlin Syndrome to effectively enact what the female gaze purportedly entails. Keywords: Laura Mulvey, male gaze, female gaze, film studies, theater of crueltyItem Open Access VOLUME 6, ISSUE 3 — OTHERNESS, SURVIVAL AND HOPE: PEDAGOGIES IN POPULAR MEDIA(Dialogue, 6(3), 2019) CohenMiller, Anna S.Mass media has played, and is currently playing, a role in the way individuals make sense of their identities, roles and that of society. Through these media outlets—whether in TV, media, and music or in newspaper, articles, and books—people are learning. In other words, we are experiencing daily a pedagogical onslaught of information through popular media that can create conflict within ourselves or elicit great insights for change and acceptance. Viewing the world around us informs our thinking. As children, there is frequently a lens of awe in seeing new ideas and mechanisms of the world working in unique ways. Each new piece of information is a fact to translate into a growing mental map. For those entering formal education, new ideas tend to come in the form of “texts” intended to show fact and truth about disciplinary learning. The new pieces of information are then often coded within boxes, compartmentalized for instance into learning about science, math, and language. In institutions of higher education, concepts of identity, race, class, and hierarchy persist. Through peer relations, students find commonalities and cohesion or on the flip-side experience “Othering” based upon race, class and gender (Crozier, Burke, & Archer, 2016). Outside the classroom, informal learning through experience (Marsick & Watkins, 2011) presents itself everywhere, allowing students to learn through interactions about how to behave with one another, about identity, about one another, and ones place within a hierarchical world. But what happens beyond the openminded learning of young children and formal learning within schools? As adults beyond the constraints of educational institutions, we may understand that what we pay attention to informs our understanding of ourselves and of others. Historically, for example, mass media has amplified the presence of heteronormativity of white men in written and visual texts. For those not fitting the hegemonic discourse, they are often depicted as deviant in one manner or another. These depictions have negative impacts for those being objectified, whether through TV shows normalizing sexual objectification of women (Guizzo, Cadinu, Galdi, Maass, & Latrofa, 2017) or popular culture’s perpetuation of the racialization of black bodies (Tate, 2015). In this issue of Dialogue: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Popular Culture and Pedagogy, we are pleased to present six articles speaking to the idea of what we learn from popular culture related to Otherness, survival and hope. Within and across these articles, you will hear about ways in which we need to consider ourselves and what we may have thought to be “the Other.” As such, the authors in this issue provide us with the chance to reconsider language, music, news, and cultural stories. The articles in this issue are divided into three related sections: Learning about Otherness within the Formal Classroom, Informal Learning for Survival, and Societal Learning as Control, Conflict, and Hope. Across these articles, two address providing new insights to teaching and learning in the university classroom. In Section 1: Learning about Otherness within Formal Education, Laura Dumin and Misty Thomas’s works encourage deeper thinking about popular media and its relation to our identity and perceptions of others. In Thomas’s, “I am a Conversation:” Media Literacy, Queer Pedagogy, and Steven Universe in College Curriculum,” she emphasizes the importance of opening discussion for students to investigate and analyze identity through integrating critical media literacy with queer pedagogy. Thomas demonstrates the importance of actively engaging with popular media, such as articulated through the example of Steven Universe, a cartoon show presenting both normative and non-normative identities for students and teachers as a “new approach to the inclusion of media in the university classroom” (p. 1). In Dumin’s “Using News to Start Class: How Small Daily Interactions Affect Larger Classroom Interactions,” she shows the ways in which engaging college students in learning and discussing current news stories can enhance learning about one another. Dumin’s study highlights how our conceptualization of difference, such as for topics on racial tensions and police brutality, can be addressed, providing intellectual growth through extra credit assignments and encouraging students to open-up and share with one another. With these first two articles, Thomas and Dumin show how pedagogical practice can expand individual understanding of self and others. In Section 2, we move beyond the classroom into Informal Learning for Survival with Sharon Marie Nuruddin’s article, “No te voy a dejar nunca” Culture and Second Language Acquisition for Survival in Fear the Walking Dead. In this work, Nuruddin illustrates the essential nature of informal learning as a matter of avoiding death. Applying Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory to developing bilingual and bicultural abilities, the author demonstrates how informally learning Spanish and cultural traditions can provide individuals within a post-apocalyptic world with the needed means for survival. With the final three articles, Tracy Bealer, T. Hunter Strickland, and Scott Haden Church present analyses of literature and music in Section 3: Societal Learning as Control, Conflict, and Hope. First, in Tracy Bealer’s article, “Consider the Dementor: Discipline, Punishment, and Magical Citizenship in Harry Potter,” she explores the ways in which “fearsome” dementors can be considered through varied lenses to better understand power hierarchies presented in the texts. Through her analysis, Bealer discusses how dementors are positioned as a feared Other, an embodiment of fear at the individual and societal level, intended to teach about maintaining control and order. Then in T. Hunter Strickland’s article, “Zombie Literature: Analyzing the Fear of the Unknown through Popular Culture,” he reflects on the ways universal fears can be attributed and portrayed through the genre of zombie literature. Strickland draws from the Russian philosopher, Mikhail Bakhtin’s description of carnival as a way to describe the paradox of fear and repulsion, along with shock and humor as a way to learn and move through deep-seated individual and societal fears. The final article in the section also draws from Bakhtin’s carnival, through the lens of counter culture and breaking of social hierarchies to examine music in the United States. Haden Church presents an interdisciplinary analysis in “Resistance, Race, and Myth: A Survey of American Popular Music Culture in the 20th Century,” laying a framework for informing future studies of 21st century popular music by conceptualizing the landscape as a paradox of hegemony and resistance. In addition to the full-length articles, the concept of Otherness, survival and hope can be demonstrated in Tabitha Parry Collin’s film review of Michelle Memran’s The Rest I Make Up. Parry Collin’s describes how the film demonstrates how Maria Irene Fornés made a significant impact on playwriting and teaching, yet as a “queer, brown playwright” is positioned outside of normative culture, thus “overshadowed by more mainstream voices.” The six full-length articles in this issue encourage us to expand our scholarship and teaching to consider how individual and societal perceptions and fears are portrayed and overcome. We see how the concept of the Other can stand in for an embodiment for fear–creating pressure to act or the potential to change and grow. With the inclusion of the film review, we can see how these works can teach us about our fears, the voices that are prioritized and ways to continually push to better understand and incorporate pedagogies in popular media. We look forward to your thoughts on this issue and hope you enjoy, Otherness, Survival and Hope: Pedagogies in Popular Media.Item Open Access RELANDSCAPING THE RHETORICAL TRADITION THROUGH HIP HOP(Dialogue, 7(1), 2020) Tinajero, RobertThe field of rhetorical studies is rich and complex but has, in many ways, ignored or marginalized the study of rap music and hip hop culture. This article analyzes ways in which hip hop rhetoric adds to the terrain of rhetorical studies and posits ways that it can shift perspectives, subjects of study, practice, and theoretical frameworks within the discipline. There are also reasons hypothesized for why hip hop has been marginalized in pedagogy and academic writing within the rhetorical tradition and why it should not be ignored. Keywords: rhetoric, discourse, rap, hip hop, rhetorical traditionItem Open Access CONSIDER THE DEMENTOR: DISCIPLINE, PUNISHMENT, AND MAGICAL CITIZENSHIP IN HARRY POTTER(Dialogue, 6(3), 2019) Bealer, TracyIn his 2004 essay “Consider the Lobster”, David Foster Wallace investigated the ethics of boiling alive an aesthetically unappealing, yet sentient and perceiving, creature to augment the pleasure of a human consumer. In the Potterverse, dementors are described by our human heroes as “terrible things” with “rotting” bodies, “unseen” mouths, and characterized as “among the foulest creatures that walk this earth” . Their occupation as guards of Azkaban Prison does little to improve their reputation among wizard-kind. However, how much of the dementors’ evil is ontological? Is it possible that these beings have been actively constructed as villains by wizarding institutions in order to provide a non-human bogeyman for disciplinary purposes? Lurking beneath and at the edges of the books’ representation of dementors are clues about their chosen habitats and habits that suggest wizards have manipulated their existence in order to weaponize them. Dementors operate in the wizarding world not only to literally confine certain bodies in prison, but also to serve as a hated and feared “other” against which wizards can define themselves. Dementors are enlisted as prison guards and assigned the task of punishing wizard lawbreakers because their physical and emotional effects on these magical humans literalize the social punishment of lawbreaking in the wizarding world: social expulsion and death. Via a close reading the reviled dementor, this analysis hopes to open up a wider discussion on wizarding disciplinary techniques, and explore how other hierarchies in the Potterverse are established and maintained. Keywords: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter series, treatment of dementors, justice system in Harry Potter, rationality in Harry PotterItem Open Access ZOMBIE LITERATURE: ANALYZING THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN THROUGH POPULAR CULTURE(Dialogue, 6(3), 2019) Strickland, T. HunterThis paper will focus on how the rise in popularity of zombie literature in the 21st century is reflective of a western cultural need to address the fear of the unknown through popular culture. Through the flesh-eating zombie, we enter a parallel world where everything familiar in our communities becomes evil. The genre reflects the fear in Western society of the neighbor who has turned against you, survival in the midst of government collapse and the monster within. Zombie fantasy literature allows society a venue to deconstruct what is known while dealing with these fears and the unbridled hate of the unthinking zombie through a collective experience using popular culture. What this fantasy subgenre allows, the author will explain, is a monster that embodies an individual human’s greatest fears. At times, the zombie reflects the fear of social breakdown; at others, the zombie reflects aging and death. The versatility of this embodiment of fear allows it to be a genre that continues to evolve. Using the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin on carnival and festive folk humor, the author will discuss how the zombie genre has provided fantasy lovers a desconstructive space to deal with fear, death, and hate in a genre that breaks down what western society has constructed for itself, and also allows readers to rebuild the future without constraint. Zombies, however, always leave room for humanity to hope for life and the future. This popular culture phenomenon goes beyond mere entertainment as it reaches into the heart of viewers and allows them to express their greatest emotions. Keywords:Bakhtin, Carnivalesque, zombies, deconstruction, laughter, fear, popular cultureItem Open Access “NO TE VOY A DEJAR NUNCA” – CULTURE AND SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION FOR SURVIVAL IN FEAR THE WALKING DEAD(Dialogue, 6(3), 2019) Nuruddin, Sharon M.Popular culture reinforces and shapes the beliefs and values of the individual, the community, and the masses. It can also transmit hidden messages about aspects of human behavior that are reiterated in scholarly research. In the field of education, particularly in world language teacher education, film and television can be used as an effective tool for examining how we acquire a second language. Using a symbolic convergence theory perspective (SCT) (Bormann, 1972), I employ Sellnow’s (2014) three-step process for the rhetorical analyses of mediated popular culture texts to reveal “covert messages” (p. 9) within the popular American Movie Channel (AMC) television series, Fear the Walking Dead (FTWD). These messages inform how second language and culture acquisition develop and serve as life-saving resources in extreme cases of cultural and linguistic isolation. In Season 1 of FTWD, Nicholas “Nick” Clark, embarks on an unintentional language and cultural immersion trip to Mexico. His experience reflects research on second language and culture acquisition, reinforcing the understanding that languages can be learned rapidly when it is a matter of survival. My analysis will show that while language learning can transpire through a formally-structured classroom experience, it can also transpire informally—through a Vygotskian (1978), sociocultural, “survivalist” language and culture learning experience—as reflected in FTWD. Applying Sellnow’s process and Bormann’s perspective can help teacher educators and their students find deeper meaning through new and engaging popular culture texts. Keywords: Fear the Walking Dead, zombies, second language acquisition, teacher education, Spanish language teaching, popular culture, survivalist language learning, symbolic convergence theory, rhetorical analysis, zone of proximal developmentItem Open Access “I AM A CONVERSATION”: MEDIA LITERACY, QUEER PEDAGOGY, AND STEVEN UNIVERSE IN COLLEGE CURRICULUM(Dialogue, 6(3), 2019) Thomas, MistyThe recent cartoon show on Cartoon Network Steven Universe allows for the blending of both queer theory and media literacies to create a pedagogical space for students to investigate and analyze not only queerness, but also normative and non-normative identities. This show creates characters as well as relationships that both break with and subvert what would be considered traditional masculine and feminine identities. Additionally, Steven Universe also creates a space where sexuality and transgender bodies are represented. This paper demonstrates both the presence of queerness within the show and the pedagogical implications for using this piece of media within a college classroom. Keywords: Popular culture; Steven Universe; Queer Theory; Media Literacy; pedagogyItem Open Access USING NEWS TO START CLASS: HOW SMALL DAILY INTERACTIONS AFFECT LARGER CLASSROOM INTERACTIONS(Dialogue, 6(3), 2019) Dumin, LauraIn 2013, I added an extra credit assignment to my freshmen composition classes encouraging students to bring in news stories each class period; this assignment was designed to encourage students to be more willing to participate in classroom discussions. We then spent the first few minutes of each class discussing the stories they brought. After using this assignment for a few years, I had anecdotal evidence to suggest that my students were generally more talkative in class after the first week or two of sharing news. These experiences made me want to see if I could measure some change or document how students felt about discussing the news to start class. To that end, I developed a set of surveys to quantify this data. This article discusses the results of four semesters of survey and extra credit data from students bringing news stories to start their English classes. Keywords: student engagement, classroom management, teaching, freshman composition, SoTL, classroom discussionsItem Open Access AMC’S INFAMOUS CRIMINAL PARTNERSHIPS: SUPPRESSING THE FEMALE ANTIHERO(Dialogue, 6(2), 2019) Vosen Callens, MelissaUsing a feminist lens, the author argues that audiences have failed to embrace female characters on AMC as antiheroes, particularly when they are in romantic relationships with male antiheroes, for three primary reasons. First, female characters often challenge binary thinking, and thus, gender role stereotypes. Rather than exhibiting passive, yet nurturing characteristics, characteristics often associated with femininity and motherhood, female characters within the dataset frequently challenge their partners and exert their dominance. Second, writers often fail to fully develop female characters. The absence of their backstories (who they are and what they are thinking) makes it difficult for audiences to relate to and sympathize with these characters. Finally, within the dataset, female characters are rarely viewed as equals in the eyes of their male partners, and the audience takes cues from this treatment. When female characters are childless and/or respected by their male partners, they are more widely accepted as antiheroes. In this paper, the author examines some of the most famous criminal antihero partnerships in the top-rated AMC series over the last decade: Walter and Skyler White (Breaking Bad), Rick and Lori Grimes / Rick Grimes and Michonne (The Walking Dead), Don and Betty Draper (Mad Men), and Saul Goodman and Kim Wexler (Better Call Saul). Following this critique, the broader cultural implications of these representations are offered, particularly the disempowerment of women through motherhood. Keywords: AMC, antihero, feminist criticism, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Better Call SaulItem Open Access VOLUME 6, ISSUE 2 — CRIMINALS AS HEROES: PROBLEMS AND PEDAGOGY IN POPULAR CULTURE(Dialogue, 6(2), 2019) Bippert, Kelli; CohenMiller, Anna S.We are happy to present our special issue, “Criminals as Heroes: Problems and Pedagogy in Popular Culture,” guest edited by Kate Lane and Roxie James. In this issue we explore the unique role that the anti-hero has taken in recent years. The changing nature of how criminals are portrayed in popular culture brings us a new understanding of how society has shaped this cultural form, and how popular culture has, in turn, shaped society. Popular culture arms us with an exciting and powerful pedagogical tool and continues to offer a lens through which to grapple with serious societal issues. In the 1960s and 1970s in the United States, for example, popular culture provided an outlet for viewers to consider important changes occurring in society. Television programs such as All in the Family, Maud, and The Jeffersons helped us think about, and discuss, issues of race and gender equity during a historic period of social change. Today, television series such as Modern Family and Speechless provides society with a fictional world with which to consider how we define ourselves individually and exist as a families, presenting us with a far more inclusive portrayal of how we live our lives today through characters who may not look like us, behave like us, or perhaps even think like us. Through such fictional portrayals that address important issues, we can critically evaluate the changes taking place in our society. While the articles are described in detail within Lane and James’s guest editorial, “What Hot Criminals, Anti-Heroes, and Bob Dylan Can Teach Us,” as a brief introduction here, the five articles in this issue reflect on the increasingly important, and changing, role and portrayal of the anti-hero in popular culture. First, Amanda DiPaolo helps us ponder the concerns that may emerge due to the continuing development of artificial intelligence. Max Romanowski then explores how good and evil are defined and portrayed in popular culture. Later in this issue, James Tregonning critically evaluates what it means to follow societal rules when they clash with personal ethics. Lastly, the final two articles by Courtney Watson and Melissa Vosen Callens, respectively, take on an analysis of the more recent incarnations of the female anti-hero. Each of the articles in this issue provide ways that we can contemplate society today, using popular culture to address issues of equity, morality, and personal ethics. We are now seeing heroes, and in the case of this special issue, anti-heroes, coming from a varied cross-section of society. Today, we see an increasing variety of characters, such as individuals identifying as men, women, cisgender, transgender, as well as a range across ethnic and cultural identities, and representing various forms of ability and disability. Each variance portrays life, demonstrating a growing acceptance and portrayal of diverse variations within popular culture. In addition to the full-length articles, the diversity in representation can be demonstrated to a greater extent in the online book review of Ghettos, Tramps, and Welfare Queens (Pimpare, 2017). In the review, Debbie Olson highlights Pimpare’s (2017) discussion of the “marginalized and maligned” while also noting how the book could be enhanced by further demonstrating the intersection between race, gender, and poverty. The five articles in this special issue can inform the ways we may choose to consider how the antihero is portrayed, providing insight into why individuals may have selected their path in life, even if at first, this path may push against societal assumptions of what is expected and normal. With the inclusion of the book review, we are shown how future essays and studies could delve into the ways in which sociocultural factors, positionality, and societal expectations and pressures can be examined further. The authors present new ways to use a fictional world to discuss important societal issues, and perhaps question and consider our own personal biases. We hope you enjoy this special edition of Dialogue.Item Open Access BAD GIRLS: AGENCY, REVENGE, AND REDEMPTION IN CONTEMPORARY DRAMA(Dialogue, 6(2), 2019) Watson, CourtneyCultural movements including #TimesUp and #MeToo have contributed momentum to the demand for and development of smart, justified female criminal characters in contemporary television drama. These women are representations of shifting power dynamics, and they possess agency as they channel their desires and fury into success, redemption, and revenge. Building on works including Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black, dramas produced since 2016—including The Handmaid’s Tale, Ozark, and Killing Eve—have featured the rise of women who use rule-breaking, rebellion, and crime to enact positive change. Keywords: #TimesUp, #MeToo, crime, television, drama, power, Margaret Atwood, revenge, Gone Girl, Orange is the New Black, The Handmaid’s Tale, Ozark, Killing EveItem Open Access BREAKING THE RULES: PLAYING CRIMINALLY IN VIDEO GAMES(Dialogue, 6(2), 2019) Tregonning, JamesVideo games have long courted controversy for their frequent valorisation of criminality. However, in this article, I consider heroic criminals in video games from a different perspective. I focus on two games – Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please (2013) and Osmotic Studio’s Orwell (2016) – that position the player as a low-level government operative in a fictional authoritarian regime. Players are expected to process information for their governments, although they are also given opportunities to undermine or subvert the regime. Thus, the trope of heroic criminal is used to comment on the function and role of the state. It becomes the lens through which issues of political philosophy and ethics are balanced against the more pragmatic concerns of personal safety. These multiple competing pressures allow Papers, Please and Orwell to position heroic criminality as a multifaceted problem for the player to critically engage with. Keywords: Papers, Please; Orwell; video games; criminality; video game violenceItem Open Access NATURE VS. NURTURE IN ALBUQUERQUE: WHAT BREAKING BAD AND BETTER CALL SAUL TEACH US ABOUT HOW WE TALK ABOUT CRIMINALS(Dialogue, 6(2), 2019) Romanowski, MaxBreaking Bad and Better Call Saul focus on the criminal transformation of their two main characters, Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk). While quite similar on the surface, Walter and Jimmy’s narratives represent two different criminal transitions, evoking the classic nature vs nurture conversation. Both of these shows bring the conversation to the idea of inevitability. The nature vs. nurture argument is a popular one because it acts as a teaching tool for how we think and talk about criminal behavior. At first, it follows that since criminality was in Walter White’s nature the whole time, his transition should feel the most inevitable, with the inverse being true of Jimmy. However, since Better Call Saul is a prequel to Breaking Bad, the opposite ends up happening. Even though Jimmy may only need the right people around him to be saved from his descent, his presence as Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad reminds the audience that it is Jimmy who is already fated to become a criminal. This dichotomy highlights the distinctive pedagogical opportunity present in both of these shows. Through their subversion of the concepts of nature and nurture, they allow for a unique teaching opportunity regarding how we talk about criminals. This article explores what they teach us and how their commentary can be used as a pedagogical tool for learning about criminal behavior in more nuanced ways. Keywords: Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Nature, Nurture, Social Learning Theory, Classical Conditioning