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Editor-in-Chief:
As of 2021, Brill Research Perspectives in Popular Culture is no longer published as a journal but continues as a book series. Please find the new home page here.

The expression “popular culture” alludes, essentially, to a form of culture that makes little, if any, categorical distinctions between “high or serious culture” and “low or entertainment culture,” making it historically a non-traditional form of culture. In the evolution of human cultures, popular culture stands out as atypical, since it takes cultural material from any source and revamps it according to the laws of the marketplace. In contrast to historical (traditional) culture, it rejects both the supremacy of tradition and of established cultural norms, as well as the pretensions of intellectualist tendencies within contemporary artistic cultures. Popular culture has always been highly appealing for this very reason, bestowing on common people the assurance that cultural trends are for everyone, not just for an elite class of artists and cognoscenti. It is thus populist, unpredictable, and highly ephemeral, reflecting the ever-changing tastes of one generation after another. Moreover, among the ephemeral trends and texts, there are some that have risen to the level of high art, hence the paradox and power of popular culture.

Brill Research Perspectives in Popular Culture is a peer-reviewed, hybrid journal and reference publication that features studies exploring all aspects of popular culture today, from its traditional platforms, audiences and traditional electronic media, to the contemporary digital media. Each issue comprises a single, uniquely focused short monograph that examines some particular aspect, text, or event that falls under the rubric of “pop culture,” including popular programs (sitcoms, adventure series, etc.); celebrities; fads; theories of the popular imagination; the relation of popular culture to other cultures; the role of memetic culture vis-à-vis traditional forms of culture; the nature of performance; the psychological, anthropological, and semiotic aspects of popular culture systems; and the like. In addition, studies will also look at specific frameworks for analyzing popular culture, such as archetype theory and carnival theory.

The intended audience of Brill Research Perspectives in Popular Culture is the network of scholars and instructors involved in popular culture studies and cognate disciplines (psychology, culture studies, literary criticism, anthropology, musicology, sociology, neuroscience, and art criticism).

Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts by email to the publisher Jason Prevost. Please direct all other correspondence to Associate Editor Athina Dimitriou.
Author:
In Pi (π) in Nature, Art, and Culture Marcel Danesi revisits the importance of π as a pattern in the structure of reality, fitting in with the Pythagorean view of Order. Pi has cropped up in formulas that describe natural and physical structures which, on the surface, seem to have nothing to do with a circle, but might harbor the archetype of circularity as a principle.

Through π, this book thus revisits the implicit ancient Greek view that geometry was a 'hermeneutic science,' a discipline aiming to investigate the connectivity among numbers, shapes, and natural phenomena. It also examines its manifestations in aesthetic, symbolic and cultural structures, which point to an abiding fascination with the circle as an unconscious archetype. Hermeneutic geometry is ultimately about the exploration of the meanings of geometric-mathematical notions to science and human life.
Series Editor:
In an age of numbers, intellectual and aesthetic partnerships between mathematicians and the contemporary arts, humanities, and entertainment worlds have become virtually routine. Movies, television shows, and websites built around, or involving, mathematics are now commonplace. Studies in Mathematics in the Arts and Humanities (MIAH) deals with all aspects of this partnership. The monographs and edited volumes of this book series explore all aspects of mathematics outside of mathematics itself, that is, as a cultural, aesthetic, and representational phenomenon. Each work examines some particular aspect, text, or event that falls under this rubric, from mathematics in natural phenomena (e.g., the Fibonacci Series), to math in myth and mysticism (e.g., the ancient Egyptian god Horus), in the arts (e.g., the golden ratio), and in pop fiction (e.g., movies, novels). The series presents mathematics as a cultural phenomenon, rather than as an abstract technical field.

Studies in Mathematics in the Arts and Humanities also explores such areas as the role of mathematics in new forms of art, such as digital art, and websites that present interesting facts about the interconnection between math and everyday life. These are discussed in terms of critical and genre theories that apply to any textual creation. The series is thus of interest to scholars and instructors involved in interdisciplinary work in which mathematics surfaces as an ancillary or thematic focus, including culture studies, literary criticism, anthropology, musicology, and art criticism. Furthermore, it is of interest and relevance to anyone who is interested in how mathematics is evolving in cultural spaces, new and old.

Studies in Mathematics in the Arts and Humanities is published in cooperation with The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences.

Manuscripts should be at least 80,000 words in length (including footnotes and bibliography). Manuscripts may also include illustrations and other visual material. The editors welcome proposals for monographs written for academics and researchers in the field that are based on original scholarly research that makes a notable contribution to the subject. The series editors will also consider proposals for edited volumes that demonstrate strong thematic coherence and continuity among the contributions.

Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts by email to the publisher Jason Prevost. Please direct all other correspondence to Associate Editor Katie Short.

Authors will find general proposal guidelines at the Brill Author Gateway.
Author:
Pop culture emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century as a reaction to the restrictive social traditions of colonial America. It spread quickly and broadly throughout the bustling urban centers of the 1920s—an era when it formed a partnership with technology and the business world. This coalition gave pop culture its identity, allowing it to thrive and form alliances with artistic and literary movements. But pop culture may have run its course with the rise of meme culture. This publication revisits the social, psychic, and aesthetic roots of pop culture, suggesting that meme culture has fragmented its historical flow, thus threatening to bring about its demise.
In: Pi (π) in Nature, Art, and Culture
In: Pi (π) in Nature, Art, and Culture
In: Pi (π) in Nature, Art, and Culture
In: Pi (π) in Nature, Art, and Culture
In: Pi (π) in Nature, Art, and Culture
Author:

Abstract

The 45th American president, Donald J. Trump, had a considerable impact on the comedic mood in America during his presidential tenure, drastically altering its style and historical flow. His presidency turned comedy into political weaponry, dividing it, like the country, into two camps—a Trump-supportive comedy emerged and a powerful anti-Trump comedy. Significantly, Trump himself adopted his own form of dark, caustic, comedy with consummate skill at his myriad rallies. No other president had ever come close to performing a clownish act in the same way. This book looks at Trump’s effect on American comedy, juxtaposing comedic traditions in America to the antics of Trump himself. Examining how comedy had evolved during his presidency might be able to shed some light on how and why American society has split into political tribes, and perhaps why there is no longer any common frame of reference for enjoying comedy. Trump himself was a consummate entertainer, who used his own style of destructive dark humor to lambast opponents, giving a comedic voice to hatred. He was a blend of commedia dell’arte personage, Archie Bunker redux, and P. T. Barnum hustler, who understood the power of humor to sway minds. This made him largely impervious to the comedic weapons being used against him. He fought comedy with comedy, leaving America in shambles. This book aims to deconstruct how Trump affected the American psyche by altering how comedy came to perceived and practiced.

In: Comedic Nightmare