Power, Politics, and Popular Culture

While the analysis of popular culture has a long provenance in political research as evidenced by the work of Walter Benjamin, David Easton, John Tomlinson, Stuart Hall, and Donna Haraway, there has recently been a renewed interest in exploring how popular culture and politics produce relations of power. Whether it be through analyses of Battlestar Galactica (e.g., Kiersey and Neumann 2012), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Davies 2010; Shepherd 2012), video games (Robinson 2012), alien invasion films (Löfflmann 2013), novels (Shapiro 2013), music (Street 2012), or art (Lisle and Danchev 2009), a growing literature argues that the political power of popular culture must be taken seriously. In the hope of building upon insights into politics and power that have been revealed through the recent cultural turn in political research, this section seeks papers that explore the complex intersections of power, politics and popular culture in their theoretical, historical, comparative, or contemporary dimensions. It is also interested in research that evaluates the state of the art in aesthetic, phenomenological, and representational explorations of contemporary relations of power through popular culture. Key questions to be considered in papers might include: -does popular culture matter in politics, how might it matter, to whom might it matter, and how might its myriad influences be assessed or perceived; -what are the methodological issues for examining popular culture in political research--including aesthetic and phenomenological approaches to the analysis of artefacts and power dynamics; -what are the political impacts of embodiment, affect, the material design of devices, and the modes through which contemporary media are experienced; -how can one analyse cultural forms as a way of problematizing politics and its supporting practices or structures; -what is best pedagogical practice in terms of deploying popular culture in the seminar room and/or for teaching appropriate research methods for the field? Dr. Kyle Grayson is a Senior Lecturer in international politics at Newcastle University. He is the editor of the journal Politics (UK Political Studies Association), an associate editor of Critical Studies on Security, and a co-editor of the Popular Culture and World Politics book series (Routledge). Since 2008, he has published articles in BJPIR, Security Dialogue, the Review of International Studies, International Politics, and the Cambridge Review of International Affairs as well as a single authored monograph for University of Toronto Press. He has previously organised conference sections for SGIR (Turin and Stockholm) and an EWIS workshop (Tartu). Further details about his profile can be found at www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/politics/about/staff/profile/kyle.grayson Matt Davies is a Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy at Newcastle University. He is a co-editor of the book series Popular Culture and World Politics at Routledge. He has published articles in Global Society, Politics, International Political Sociology, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, and has contributed chapters to numerous books. He is the author of International Political Economy and Mass Communication in Chile and co-edited, with Magnus Ryner, Poverty and the Production of World Politics. He has previously organised sections for SGIR and served as the section chair for the Global Development Section of the International Studies Association. His profile can be found at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/gps/staff/profile/matt.davies