Against Academia: The History of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Movement, 1967-1988. 2nd ed. by Ray B. Browne

Abstract

This review was inadvertently left out of our last issue, which reassessed the important works of our journal's founder, Ray B. Browne. Against Academia: The History of the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association and the Popular Culture Movement, 1967-1988. 2nd ed. Ray B. Browne. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989. Against Academia was Ray Browne's attempt to define a useable past for a movement seeking legitimacy; it established a timeline with dates, major events, and key personalities - from the earliest days until 1988 when the manuscript was completed. As a true visionary, Ray understood the importance of a narrative record of his innovations. While teaching at Purdue in 1965, Ray hosted an American studies conference where scholars like R?ssel Nye (a Pulitzer Prize winner), and Tom Towers shared their interests in interdisciplinary studies; Ray urged a broader application beyond high to folklore and culture. Surprisingly, there was resistance by many Americanists, crystallized by William Gass in his assertion that culture cripples consciousness (12). When Ray arrived at Bowling Green in 1967, he was pleased to find administrators who helped him start a Center for the Study of Popular Culture and to begin publication of a Journal of Popular Culture. In 1969, with R?ssel Nye, Marshall Fishwick and others, Browne founded the Popular Culture Association. As the organizational structure evolved, the pioneers were joined by John G. Cawelti (University of Chicago), Carl Bode (University of Maryland), David Madden (Louisiana State University), and Philip G. Durham (UCLA). The first national meeting was held at Michigan State University in the spring of 1971. (The conference program is included as an appendix.) Meanwhile, back in Bowling Green State University in Ohio, Ray and Pat Browne created the Popular Press in 1970 and collected a nucleus for a Popular Culture Library (which today occupies an entire floor of the Jerome Library on the BGSU campus). From the popular press offices, the Brownes tapped talents of local campus colleagues to produce an innovative journal entitled Popular Music and Society plus a very important Journal of Cultural Geography. Both were successful. Another experiment was The Journal of Regional Cultures, an effort which died on the vine after a handsome, single issue was published on the Southwest (alas, Rollins as Editor). Not every sprig bloomed. …