1st Edition

Intersectional Analysis as a Method to Analyze Popular Culture Clarity in the Matrix

By Erica B. Edwards, Jennifer Esposito Copyright 2020
188 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

188 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

188 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Intersectional Analysis as a Method to Analyze Popular Culture: Clarity in the Matrix explores how race, class, gender, sexuality, and other social categories are represented in, and constructed by, some of the most significant popular culture artifacts in contemporary Western culture. Through readings of racialized television sitcoms, LGBTQ+ representation in mainstream American music,... Read more
Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Methodological Rationale

Chapter 3. Ethics and Popular Culture: What are the Boundaries?

Chapter 4. Reading Television Sitcoms Intersectionally

Chapter 5. Reading Popular Music Intersectionally

Chapter 6. Reading Film Intersectionally

Chapter 7. Reading Social Media Intersectionally

Chapter 8. Epilogue

Biography

Erica B. Edwards is an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Wayne State University. Her research focuses youth experiences with exclusionary discipline at the intersections of racism, classism, and sexism. Considering the central ideological role of popular culture in youth experiences, Erica also writes about the educative value of television, film, and music from a Black feminist perspective.

Jennifer Esposito is a professor of educational policy studies at Georgia State University. Her research includes the ways race, class, gender, and sexual orientation shape one’s access to and experience within all levels of education. She also interrogates how popular culture functions as an educative site.

If the great Stuart Hall taught us anything, he taught us that theory has to matter. Intersectional Analysis as a Method to Analyze Popular Culture shows us how theory matters in popular culture when intersectionality and justice is at the center of the work. This book dares us to look at ourselves as cultural beings consuming popular culture in the matrix. This book is required reading for individuals and classes seeking to make sense of popular culture and all its complexities by way of intersectional analysis. It pushes us to question how we work to maintain, resist, and negotiate text, and thus, power. 

Bettina L. Love, Associate Professor, University of Georgia