Popular Modernity in America

Michael Thomas Carroll is Associate Professor of English at New Mexico Highlands University. He is the editor of No Small World: Visions and Revisions of World Literature, and coeditor of Phenomenological Approaches to Popular Culture.

"This is an excellent book, gracefully written and scrupulously detailed. The range and sweep of Carroll's scholarship is impressive, and he manages to link such unlikely figures as Bing Crosby and the culture of contemporary Rap music in ways that surprise and delight the reader's imagination. The theoretical arguments throughout the book and the range of topics are remarkable and refreshing. I consider this to be one of the most ably interdisciplinary texts I've ever encountered." — Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of The Second Century of Cinema: The Past and Future of the Moving Image"The splendid synthesis and approach make this a very rich text. The conceptualization, scope, depth, and analysis are outstanding. Rather than an exhaustive historical overview of entertainment and modernity, the author's paradigm is a manageable and interesting method. The technology-myth-experience triad is useful, insightful, and interesting. And there is a strong sense of historical framing and evolution. Hugely significant!" — George Plasketes, author of Images of Elvis Presley in American Culture, 1977–1997: The Mystery Terrain

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1. American Technospace and the Emergence of Popular Modernity 2. The Disembodied Voice: Coughlin, Crosby, and Other Crooners 3. Temporality and Commercial Culture: Nostalgic Entertainments 4. Visuality: The "Scopic Regime" of Popular Modernity 5. Vocality, Visuality, Alterity: Black American Cultural Production 6. The Narrative Imperative Works Consulted Index