What exactly is popular culture? How should it be studied? What forces come together in producing, disseminating, and consuming it? Is it always conformist, or has it the power to resist and subvert the status quo? Is the line between ""high"" and ""low"" merely arbitrary? Do the popular arts have a distinctive aesthetics? This collection offers a wide range of responses to these and similar questions. Edited by Harold E. Hinds, Jr., Marilyn F. Motz, and Angela M. S. Nelson, Popular Culture Theory and Methodology charts some of the key turning points in the ""culture wars.