Teaching American Media and Popular Culture: Expansion, Inclusion, Interdisciplinarity

Authors

  • Joel Frykholm Stockholm University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22439/asca.v56i2.7379

Keywords:

American media, popular culture, media spectacle, media and everyday life, globalization, media and politics, interdisciplinarity

Abstract

This is a reflection on my experiences in teaching American media at the Swedish Institute for American studies from 2015 to 2021. By way of concrete descriptions of classes taught and topics raised, I make a case for an approach to popular media that looks beyond both an all-too-limited focus on “mass media” and the text-centric, hermeneutically based discussions about media representations that have otherwise been the most common way of engaging with media in American studies. I also discuss challenges of interdisciplinarity that are a key concern not only when teaching media, but for the field of American studies more broadly.

Author Biography

Joel Frykholm, Stockholm University

Joel Frykholm is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at Stockholm University. He is author of George Kleine and American Cinema (BFI, 2015) and co-editor (with Marina Dahlquist) of The Institutionalization of Educational Cinema (Indiana University Press, 2019). Current research interests include Swedish cinema history, Swedish contemporary film and television culture, and Swedish responses to the global impact of American popular culture from cinema’s silent era onward.

References

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Published

2024-12-12

How to Cite

Frykholm, J. (2024). Teaching American Media and Popular Culture: Expansion, Inclusion, Interdisciplinarity. American Studies in Scandinavia, 56(2). https://doi.org/10.22439/asca.v56i2.7379