Popular Modernity in America: Experience, Technology, Mythohistory (S U N Y Series in Postmodern Culture)

Rating:
Summary: Is popular culture fascist?
Review: No one should deny the boldness of the task to map out a history of esthetical technologies as driving forces in American popular modernity as M.T. Carroll does in this book. Concepts like hypermediation and Mythohistory are introduced as exciting ways to think about popular culture. But I have one major objection: I find it very hard to follow an argumentation that links almost everything, from Roosevelt to Rap music, to fascism. Heavy Metal bands, H.P Lovecraft and Freikorps homo-erotica may have something in common, but there is a chance that the word facism is being over-used here, with the danger of devoiding it of meaning. Apart from this, I think Carroll makes many good observations on popular culture, abeit most of them are based on other people's research. Further is the last chapter very good, and it gives the analysis more complexity. All in all, this book could function as an introductory text to the study of popular culture.