'Profs Do Pop'

JOHNSON CITY (March 23, 2018) – The latest medical and scientific discoveries and new observations and thoughts on historic events or classic literature are among things that generally come to mind when one thinks of topics for scholarly publication. 

Some scholars, though, in addition to their everyday academic pursuits, study pop culture, looking with a critical eye at the things at which they are fans, and East Tennessee State University’s Dr. Andrew Herrmann is one of a consortium of such scholars from around the country who are making pop culture scholarship available to the masses through an online journal called Profs Do Pop (www.profsdopop.com).

The contents of most scholarly journals are not always easily accessible to the public.  Many times, online articles are only available by subscription or fee, and print copies will only be accessed by those willing to put forth the effort to visit their nearest academic library, which may or may not be close to home … and which may or may not carry the journals they wish to read.

The field of pop culture studies has such peer-reviewed publications as The Journal of Popular Culture and The Popular Culture Studies Journal.  But Herrmann and his colleagues are opening up their field with their fun, light-hearted website that provides free access to scholarly articles on a variety of pop culture topics.

In addition to Herrmann, an associate professor of communication studies and associate chair of the ETSU Department of Communication and Performance, the creators of Profs Do Pop include communication scholars from around the country.  Hailing from UCLA, Purdue, Ball State and the University of Nebraska, as well as ETSU, they call themselves fans, geeks, nerds, students, writers, scholars, television-watchers, gamers and music lovers who are both fans and scholars and who “exist in spaces in which learning, teaching, studying, and critique are all connected.”

“At Profs Do Pop, we bring together our skills of observation, critical reflection, and production in order to examine issues of gender, race, class, sexuality, and their intersections,” they write on the website.  “We are here to engage, reflect, explore, collect, question, and complicate these worlds in hopes of a deeper understanding of the roles that popular culture plays in our lives.”

“It’s not like we’re sitting around watching TV all the time – we all have other things that we do,” Herrmann says.  “We’re watching and rewatching, and being critical about what we’re watching.  I always think, ‘What are the stories we see and hear in pop culture telling us about life, work, or work-life balance?’  Some television shows set in workplaces, for instance, rarely show the characters’ home lives, making work seem all-encompassing.  Shows like ‘Big Brother’ and ‘Survivor’ tell us it’s okay to basically be fraudulent to people until you are the ‘last on the island.’

“And one of my latest blog posts on the site is on ‘Black Panther’ and how it’s about time we have a black superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”

The team wants its work to be transparent and readily accessible to everyone.  “To us,” the website says, “it only makes sense that popular culture scholarship should be available to fans as well as other scholars.  In addition to highlighting existing scholarship, we hope to be the conduit that helps translate and interpret that scholarship for a wide range of audiences.”

The website includes articles posted in seven categories: Screens, Tunes, Written Words, Fandom, Scholar Spotlight, Critical Approaches and General.