The Hunger

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From the Editor: Mixtures and Intersections Author(s): Rhonda V. Wilcox Source: Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 35, No. 2 (SPRING 2013), pp. vii-viii Published by: Popular Culture Association in the South Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23416332 Accessed: 24-03-2015 04:47 UTC

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From the Editor

Mixtures and Intersections

This is the first issue of Studies in Popular Culture to be published since we lost Michael Dunne, its editor for nine years (with Sara Lewis

Dunne). I have long been an admirer of Michael Dunne; soon after joining PCAS, 1 learned to make sure to attend his sessions at every fall confer

ence. Once, when I had to miss his session because of leaving early to

celebrate my son's birthday, he kindly agreed to give me a copy of his pa

per—the wonderful essay "Beavis, Butthead, and Bakhtin." That title tells

you a bit about Michael's erudition and wit. Later, I learned more about his

kindness. When I became editor of this journal, succeeding Michael and

Sara, they did not just offer the usual platitudes of encouragement; they invited me into their home for the weekend, to give me a crash course in

the work I would have to do. I cannot really put into words what Michael

was to me and to many others in PCAS; for that, 1 refer you to Sara. Flip the pages back to the essay right before this one, if you have not already read "Michael Dunne and Popular Culture." This journal, our parent or

ganization, and the field of popular culture studies all owe a great deal to

Michael Dunne.

I am not sure which of this issue's essays Michael would like

best; they are an interesting batch. Most of them investigate, in one way or another, the curious lines that popular culture can cross—in terms of

medium, genre, cultural place, and more. Lynnette Porter discusses the

transformation of a popular work of drama based on literature—a new

version of Frankenstein—as it moves through incarnations as the orig inal live drama, a recording that was broadcast to live audiences, and a

replayed/edited version which some wish to make widely available. New

technology raises questions of the nature of artistic aims and shaping. Por

ter asks us to ponder: is this creature still alive? Jim Keller, in his work

on the marketing of The Hunger Games, not only considers the shift from

book to film but more particularly, the parallels in both to the process of

Hollywood's system of selling. Games are played in both territories. Cyn thea Masson examines a similar phenomenon in an episode of the Joss

Whedon series Angel: the episode "Smile Time" not only incorporates a

strange and hilarious mixture of muppet-style puppets with its normal live

actors, but also symbolically presents the business of television, which

has puppets of its own. Isher-Paul Sahni takes us to the unexpected junc ture of Jackass and MoMA, the Museum of Modern Art; he analyzes the reasons for their joining, in the MoMA Jackass exhibit. Matt Bailey

vii

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reminds us of a very different cultural center, the mall; he intersects cultur

al place and film narrative to demonstrate the mall's consumer connections

to the hottest of current symbols, the zombie—as presented by George Romero. Carey Millsap-Spears presents a study of the significance of the

double in another multi-formed work, the stage-musical-to-film Sweeney Todd. Finally, Lauren Chesnut explores Destination Truth, a series with

one foot in muddy ethnography and another in colonialist entertainment.

Our book reviews begin with a review essay by Ed Whitelock on the 33

1/3 series of books on music.

As always, we give thanks to our editorial board and the many oth

er scholars who also serve as blind peer reviewers for the journal. Among those not named on the masthead page who have helped with reviewing in

the months leading to up this issue are Pam Bedore, Don Butts, Marie Dal

lam, Ashli Dykes, Greg Erickson, Sarah Fogle, Jennifer Garlen, Jeremy

Groskopf, Jill Hague, Jeremy Justus, Ty Matejowsky, Mary Alice Money, Eleanor Hersey Nickel, Ian Peters, Shelley Rees, Erin Waggoner, and Kris

Woofter. We offer sincere gratitude for the work of these scholars, because

we believe the work we do is important. We are, after all, following in the

footsteps of Michael Dunne.

Rhonda V. Wilcox

Gordon State College

Studies in Popular Culture 35.2 Spring 2013

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