Pop Culture Wars: Religion & the Role of Entertainment in American Life - Softcover

Romanowski, William D.

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9780830819881: Pop Culture Wars: Religion & the Role of Entertainment in American Life

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0830819886 ISBN 13: 9780830819881

Publisher: Intervarsity Pr, 1996

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Entertainment has long been a source of controversy in American life. On the one hand, American popular culture is enormously desired, captivating audiences around the world. On the other hand, more and more critics blame it for the breakdown of morals and even civilization itself.
In this groundbreaking book, William Romanowski brings something desperately needed to the discussion: an informed, systematic and challenging Christian perspective. Comprehensive and historically revealing, Pop Culture Wars bids to accomplish nothing less than to reframe and render more constructive a crucial but angry cultural debate.

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About the Author:

William D. Romanowski is professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Michigan).

From Library Journal:

A historical study ranging over the breadth of U.S. culture but focusing primarily on Hollywood cinema, this book aims to describe how the "cosmic spiritual battle between good and evil" relates to "cultural hierarchies," that is, to the gradation of high and low culture. An examination of the dynamic relations of Christian "reform groups" and cultural elites to the commercial entertainment industries are shown to expose the hypocritical attitudes of the former as regards the latter. Romanowski (communication arts, Calvin Coll., Grand Rapids) has researched broadly across cultural history, bringing in examples of similar dynamics from other centuries as well as scholarly conclusions regarding every conceivable type of popular American culture. All bolster the main argument that the popular arts are hindered in their development by a lack of attention and analysis in our educational system. As a synthesis of academic work on popular culture, however, this work fails to integrate the range of contemporary critical and cultural theories and therefore lacks perspective on its own reformist goal of influencing the values of popular culture. Nonetheless, this work may find an audience at Christian colleges.?Jane E. Sloan, Rutgers Univ. Libs., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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