Popular Culture :
a guide to library resources

Contents:
Starting points | Finding books | Finding journal articles

Related library guides which may be helpful:
Australian & international film resources | Media Studies | Sport & Leisure |

STARTING POINTS

When you need to define your topic and/or get some background reading try consulting a dictionary or encyclopedia on popular culture or popular music.

The guide to Anthropology dictionaries/encyclopedias will help if you need explanations of anthropological terminology or theory.

To find overviews on the subject try the following:

Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction (2001) [print]
[Surveys competing theories of and various approaches to popular culture]

Introduction to theories of popular culture (2004) [print]
[Includes mass culture, the Frankfurt School and the culture industry, semiology and structuralism, Marxism, feminism, postmodernism and cultural populism]

Mapping the beat: popular music and contemporary theory (1997) [print]
[Maps out contemporary pop music in relation to cultural and social theory. A review is linked here]

Popular culture theory and methodology : a basic introduction  (2006) [print]
[Provides  both the historical context and the critical apparatus required for future developments in the study of popular culture]

"The Popular" in American culture (1996) [electronic]
[This review contrasts the relative lack of interest in popular culture within anthropology with the critical attention this concept has received within cultural studies. Published in vol.25 of the Annual review of Anthropology. Also available in print format]

FINDING BOOKS USING THE LIBRARY CATALOGUE

Books can be found by searching the library catalogue. Keyword searching is probably the best way of identifying material, and your results will be maximised by using keyword searching techniques such as truncation and Boolean searching, and by incorporating subject headings into your search where appropriate. Here are some examples on how to construct searches:

"popular culture" and australia

"popular music" and (women or gender)

"popular culture" and (anthropol? or ethnograph?)

FINDING JOURNAL ARTICLES USING DATABASES

Journal articles can be found through databases listed in the Electronic Databases for Anthropology guide - Sociological Abstracts, Academic OneFile, Academic Search Premier and APA-FT (for Australian topics) are probably the best starting points for finding articles written on popular culture.

Also worth checking are the bibliographies compiled by Max Richter & others for an Anthropology course entitled Popular Culture: Discourse and Desire. The bibliographies focus on music, sport and pop culture.

Last update: 2 May 2007  

This page is maintained by Helen Attar