Pop Cult 101

They are hardly standard academic fare, even in the most freewheeling college: the barbecue as an American phenomenon; Little Orphan Annie and Daddy Warbucks as capitalists; All in the Family as Greek comedy. Yet these and other bizarre topics are often the subjects of class discussions, projects and papers at Ohio's Bowling Green State University, the home of the first and largest department of popular culture in the U.S.

Taking Root. Department Chairman Ray B. Browne first decided to promote popular culture as an academic specialty in the late 1960s, when he was teaching English literature at Purdue. But Purdue would have none of it, so Browne transferred to Bowling Green, which was considerably more receptive. Last year he formed the new department of popular culture, which immediately took root and flourished. The department now has a $500,000 library, four professors, 43 graduate students and 600 undergraduates every quarter. It also publishes a more or less scholarly quarterly, Journal of Popular Culture (containing articles on such subjects as carnivals, television weathermen and women's magazines), and ten specialized books a year on its own press. Browne, 52, says the department "deals with a very important segment of society, the contemporary scene. Popular culture is holding us up to ourselves to see. It can tell us who we are, what we are and why."

In answering those questions, pop-cult students delve into some unconventional projects. For example, Pamela Ecker, a second year graduate student, recently completed a study on the social significance of the T shirt. She based a paper on the idea of "people using clothing to give a message," and then designed bright yellow T shirts emblazoned with caricatures of easily recognizeable contemporary objects--including TIME covers, Volkswagens and McDonald's golden arches--for students to wear to class.

Other colleges have taken up pop cult as a serious discipline too. Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago and Morgan State University in Baltimore have started popular culture programs, and Browne says he has received letters from many other schools inquiring about how to start similar courses. "Campuses are losing students, and many are reaching for new programs," he says. "Back in the '60s it was change for change's sake, now it's change for the students' sake."

Despite its apparent success, the popular-culture department is regarded with less than complete enthusiasm by many of Bowling Green's faculty members. Says pop cult Assistant Professor Michael Marsden: "There's still the suspicion that we're pandering to popular tastes and faddism." There may be some cause for this suspicion. Even its sup- porters admit that popular culture is not a well-understood discipline. One question on the final exam for the introduction-to-pop course this month asked, "How would you now explain to your parents what this popular-culture stuff is all about?"

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