Popular Culture

I am, and always will be, a learner as well as a teacher. The area I would most love to know more about is Popular Culture. For me, it is the true voice of creativity. High Culture is the mandated voice of creativity handed down to us by the rich and the influential, and will always be set up to divide society into the cogniscenti and the others. It reflects what is acceptable and unthreatening, whereas true Popular Culture is something over which they have little control. I would love to undertake a PhD in the future focused on the field but I know I need to have much more understanding of the discipline.

This Blogmas, starting on December 1, I will be taking my first steps along the path to my goal. I have been busy on ebay all summer and I have Christmas magazines ranging from 1896 to the 2010s. I will add a new one from this year to finish the collection and I will then try to investigate each magazine from a popular culture standpoint looking at it’s role as both a reflection of and a shaper of the British Christmas. Each day for, I think, 14 days I will research and write about a magazine and then on the final day I will try to tie together the themes that have been important and influential across the years. If it gets a good response, then I would like to either turn it into a full researched PhD or a book.

So, my question is, would you be interested in reading this series of articles in December? Let me know in the comments if you would, and if there are particular topics you would like me to look at. I don’t often ask for audience participation but I would really value it on this. Many thanks in advance.