Nearly everyone I know has a relationship with something in popular culture, whether it is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, amassing The Astonishing X-Men comics, or collecting every version of every Star Wars movie. Relationships and pop culture: couldn’t that make an autoethnography? This is a short version of my relationship with a band, Daniel Amos. I am not in Daniel Amos. I don’t know the members of the band (although I am Facebook friends with them now). I first heard them in 1982 serendipitously. Or maybe it was destiny. Either way, they opened my eyes to the wonders, doubts, and excesses of my life, critiqued my faith, and brought me joy. I feel like I know them, and they me. Thirty-one years after first hearing them, I realize our relationship is one of the longest I have had. We grew up and are growing older together.

The short stories in American Idyll: Stories experiment with the boundaries of traditional fiction by often drawing on nonfiction forms and styles to explore the roles that pop culture, locality, and cultural narratives play not only in individual lives, but also in broader terms by questioning how these elements contribute to American culture as a living, organic entity. Often playful in tone and execution, the stories in this collection aim to inhabit a spectrum: from voice-led narratives to historical fiction to textured ethereal interactions with established cultural events and persons and wholly fictional accounts of American pop culture.

The goal of this thesis is to explore the way heterosexism and homophobia are present in the coding that has created an implied and monstrous queer identity for the Joker, present in many versions of the character over the past forty years. Through close readings of several of the Joker’s most iconic appearances, queer theory texts, and analytical essays on pop culture, this paper will analyze the use of queer signifiers present in the comics and the way that these portrayals of the Joker are rife with harmful and heterocentric perceptions of what comic creators have seen as necessary signifiers for queerness. Additionally, I will be using knowledge gleaned from my own preexisting work with fan and cultural studies in order to talk about the way that this portrayal of the Joker has been developed within fandom/fan communities and how it is continually replicated in superhero media.

The aim of this essay is to identify and discuss possible solutions to problems regarding the translation of certain cultural references in blog columns by the American author Jeff Klima. More specifically, these cultural references are general cultural aspects, swear words and references to people. General cultural aspects include references to historical events, religious festivities, publications, cultural stereotypes and culturally based idioms. I use Vinay and Darbelnet’s strategies of direct and oblique translation, as well as Nida’s concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence. I also use Newmark’s strategies of semantic versus communicative translation, and Ingo’s adaption strategy. I find that there is no universal solution applicable to all types of culturally related issues in translation, but that every case is unique and requires a unique solution. What can be said, however, is that semantic translations and word-for-word translations are rarely applicable when it comes to cultural issues. True for all issues, however, is that the translator needs to be perfectly clear on what the author is saying and who the receiver, or target reader, is in order to begin to explore which strategy is best to use.

Bakalauro baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjamas otaku kultūros tapatumo formavimas Šiaulių Japonijos kultūros entuziastų klube „Yorokonde“. Darbą sudaro dvi dalys: teorinė ir praktinė. Teorinėje dalyje analizuojamos įvairių autorių tapatumo teorijos, kalbančios apie savikonstrukciją ar socialiai sukonstruojamą asmenį. Taip pat nagrinėjami skirtingi požiūriai į popkultūrą. Empirinėje dalyje rekonstruojama Japonijos kultūros plitimo chronologija, aiškinamasi otaku sąvokos problematika ir reikšmė. Analizuojamas otaku tapatumas ir jo formavimas per otaku veiklą. Išskiriama anime ir mangos svarba susidomėjimui Japonijos kultūra, iš to kylančios naujos kategorijos. Aiškinamasi kas yra cosplay bei kaip tai siejasi su pankiškosiomis „Do-it-yourself“ idėjomis. Nagrinėjamas homoseksualių mangų žanras yaoi, bei japonų kalbos įterpimas otaku kalboje. / The Bachelor‘s thesis analyses otaku cultural identity formation in Šiauliai Japanese culture enthusiasts club „Yorokonde“. The work consists of two parts, theoretical and practical. The theoretical part analyses the various authors talking about identity theories of self construction or socially constructed person. It also examines different approaches to the pop culture. In the empirical part Japanese culture spreading chronology is reconstructed. The concept of otaku term issues and implications is examined. Otaku identity and its formation through the activities of the otaku is analysed. Anime and manga importance to the interest of Japanese culture is extracted in the work.Examined relation between punk „Do-it-yourself“ ideas and cosplay, and also what cosplay is. Examined homosexual manga genre yaoi, and Japanese language usage in otaku speech.

Avec l’apparition des chaînes musicales au début des années 1980, l’industrie musicale investit massivement dans la production de clips vidéo. Pour répondre à la forte demande de clips, de nombreux réalisateurs venant aussi bien de la télévision, de la publicité, que du cinéma mirent tous leur talent au service de ce nouveau format télévisuel. C’est dans ce contexte que différents artistes visuels furent également sollicités ou proposèrent leur service pour réaliser différents clips. Au début des années 1980, le clip apparut à certains artistes comme le format idéal pour diffuser leurs images à la télévision. Il leur permettait par sa diffusion à la télévision de toucher un plus large public que celui des musées ou des galeries d’art. Pour d’autres, le clip fut un format d’expérimentation mais aussi un prolongement possible pour leur pratique artistique. Ainsi cette étude se propose d’analyser une partie de la production de certains artistes plasticiens souvent ignorée par les historiens de l’art et les critiques. À travers leurs travaux artistiques, certains artistes construisirent au contraire une critique et interrogèrent le format tout en remettant en question la pop culture diffusée à la télévision. Si la création de MTV fut une date fondatrice dans l’histoire du clip vidéo, vingt-cinq ans plus tard, l’avènement de YouTube et des sites de partage de vidéos dès 2005 marqua un grand changement dans la production mais aussi dans la consommation de clips vidéo. Nous verrons que cela entraina de nouveaux usages pour les utilisateurs pour les artistes qui s’emparèrent des contenus disponibles pour les détourner. / With the advent of music channels in the early 1980s, the music industry invested heavily in the production of music videos. To meet the high demand of music video, many filmmakers from television industry, advertising, cinema put their talents in this new TV format service. It is in this context that different visual artists were also requested and proposed their services to direct different music videos. In the early 1980s, the clip appeared some artists as the ideal format to distribute their images on television. It allowed them by its broadcast on television to reach a wider audience than museums or art galleries. For others, the clip was an experimental format, but also a potential extension to their artistic practice. So this study will analyze some of the production of certain visuals artists often ignored by art historians and critics. Through their artworks, some artists built instead a critique and questioned the format while challenging pop culture broadcast on television. If the creation of MTV was a funding event in the history of the music video, twenty-five years later, the advent of YouTube and in 2005 marked a big change in production but also in consumption of music videos. We will see that it led to new uses for Internet users and for artists who took possession available content to divert it.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Leitura teológica do seriado House M. D., tomando o personagem principal como figura estética que simboliza o status existencial humano da época presente e as narrativas da produção como mitologias existenciais contemporâneas. Afirma-se o desencantamento como possibilidade teológica de ressignificação da identidade humana, a partir da discussão a respeito da condição humana, das experiências de fé retratadas no seriado e da perspectiva de resgate de sentido existencial diante da realidade da morte. No primeiro capítulo apresenta-se a série e seus personagens, enfatizando-se a figura do protagonista Gregory House. No segundo capítulo elabora-se um quadro referencial teológico a partir de determinados pontos da produção intelectual de Paul Tillich e Jürgen Moltmann. No terceiro capítulo discute-se a condição humana, enfatinzando-se a experiência da alteridade como superação de uma ética deontológica. No quarto capítulo reflete-se sobre experiências de fé retratadas no seriado, enfatizando-se a dimensão religiosa como abertura a um horizonte absoluto de ressignificação da vida. No quinto capítulo, através de uma análise narrativa do episódio final do seriado, apresenta-se a experiência do morrer como desencantamento final e possibilidade de sentido para a conclusão da vida. / This is a theological reading of the House M.D. serial, using the main character as an esthetic figure which symbolizes the human existential status of current times and the narratives of the production as contemporary existential mythologies. Disenchantment is affirmed as a theological possibility of re-signifying the human identity based on the discussion about the human condition, the faith experiences pictured in the serial and the perspective of the recovery of existential meaning faced with the reality of death. In the first chapter the serial and its characters are presented, emphasizing the protagonist, Gregory House. In the second chapter a theological referential framework is elaborated based on certain points of the intellectual production of Paul Tillich and Jürgen Moltmann. In the third chapter the human condition is discussed emphasizing the experience of otherness as an overcoming of deontological ethics. In the fourth chapter the religious dimension is emphasized as an opening to an absolute horizon of re-signification of life. In the fifth chapter, through a narrative analysis of the final episode of the serial, the experience of dying is presented as a final disenchantment and a possibility of meaning for lifes end.

The thesis focuses on how literary texts of the so called "great tradition" can become parts of contemporary pop culture based on intertextual connections (a wide variety of them from explicit quotation to loose inspiration by the original) with the historical canonical texts, and especially on the changes occurring during such actualization in the narrative categories (storyline, space, time, characters, narrator). The theoretical part defines the concept of adaptation and related terms of intertextuality and intermediality and specifies relevant narrative categories. The analytic part focuses on two literary "giants", William Shakespeare to represent male literary oeuvre and Jane Austen as a representative of female writers' tradition, to show particular narrative modifications by comparing the original versions with their modernized adaptations that function as their pop cultural counterparts.

Submitted by Valquíria Barbieri (kikibarbi@hotmail.com) on 2017-11-08T20:56:59Z No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2012_Tatiane Hirata.pdf: 4994391 bytes, checksum: e488576c3f57263ac5e4845b7091553c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jordan (jordanbiblio@gmail.com) on 2017-12-15T13:44:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2012_Tatiane Hirata.pdf: 4994391 bytes, checksum: e488576c3f57263ac5e4845b7091553c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-15T13:44:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DISS_2012_Tatiane Hirata.pdf: 4994391 bytes, checksum: e488576c3f57263ac5e4845b7091553c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-29 / CAPES / A união entre o vitalismo do cotidiano e as práticas colaborativas da cibercultura deu origem à prática midiática do scanlation, empreendida pelos fãs de mangás, as histórias em quadrinhos japonesas. O scanlation, junção dos termos em inglês scan e translation, é o processo de digitalizar mangás impressos com o intuito de traduzi-los do japonês para outro idioma, para então distribui-los gratuitamente através da internet, sem a permissão dos detentores de direitos autorais. Dispostos a fugir da subjetividade capitalista, os participantes dessa atividade buscam subverter o modo tradicional do consumo de mangá. Reunidos sob a prática do scanlation os fãs espalhados pelo mundo reinventam os processos de re-produção, circulação e consumo de mangá neste período marcado pelos processos de convergência midiática e demandas por formas sempre renovadas de rituais de sociabilidade no anonimato urbano. / The union between vitalism of daily life and collaborative practices of ciberculture gave rise to the media practice of scanlation, an activity undertaken by fans of manga, the Japanese comics. Scanlation, contraction of words scan and translation, is the process of scanning printed mangas in order to translate them from Japanese into another language, and distributing them free of charge through internet without permission from the copyright holders. Willing to escape from capitalist subjectivity scanlation members try to subvert the traditional way of consuming manga. Gathered under the media practice of scanlation, fans around the world reinvent the process of reproduction, circulation and manga consuming in this period characterized by the process of mediatic convergence and requests for ever renewed form of rituals of sociability in urban anonymity.

Submitted by Viviane Lima da Cunha (viviane@biblioteca.ufpb.br) on 2016-09-12T12:57:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 6455376 bytes, checksum: e58e4713480939ca44809d52d4633bea (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-12T12:57:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 6455376 bytes, checksum: e58e4713480939ca44809d52d4633bea (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-09-04 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research aims to focus on the manifestations and social experiences around the young participants of Studio Made In PB, an existing collective in the city of João Pessoa (PB), since 1998, responsible for product, conduct and disseminate activities related to the pop culture in the city. As a term given by the participants of the research, pop culture propels collective and individual actions, revealing authentic and diverse coping mechanisms by such social actors that by appropriating themselves of the purchase of these goods reveal throughout the city lifestyles, identity constructions and group maintenance. By refining the look on the group's activities, the approach followed an ethnographic perspective having as the methodology the actions lived in the field’s work, interviews, informal conversations, virtual community interactions (Facebook) and imagistic registers with the members of the Studio Made In PB. By understanding the consume as a creator social practice, this research reflected on the consumer's role as active - and fandom, teacher, student, creator, staff - exercising strategic positioning on goods choices that open inventive possibilities, maintaining its own social dynamics. Emphasizing the Studio Made In PB as part of the manifestations of youth culture in João Pessoa, the analysis of this research allowed to know the recognition codes construction processes with other social groups in one of the most important activities of the group before their peers: the event "HQPB: comics and pop culture in Paraíba", that took place in November 2014. Above all, ethnographic research, that lasted almost 18 months, sought to understand these actors within the context of postmodern condition, in which they, even involved in complex games of signs in the ways of consumption, legitimize its provisions among themselves and among their peers, consolidating or reinforcing the bonding around the pop culture / Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo abordar as manifestações e experiências sociais em torno dos jovens participantes do Studio Made In PB, coletivo existente na cidade de João Pessoa (PB), desde o ano de 1998, responsável por produzir, realizar e divulgar atividades voltadas à cultura pop na cidade. Sendo um termo dado pelos pesquisáveis, a cultura pop torna-se propulsora de ações coletivas e individuais, revelando formas de lidar autênticas e diferenciadas por estes atores sociais que ao se apropriarem do consumo destes bens, revelam nos espaços da cidade estilos de vida, construções identitárias e manutenções de grupo. Ao refinar o olhar sobre as atividades do grupo, a abordagem seguiu uma perspectiva etnográfica tendo como metodologia as ações vividas em trabalho de campo, entrevistas, conversas informais, interações em comunidade virtual (Facebook) e registros imagéticos junto aos integrantes do Studio Made In PB. Ao compreender o consumo como uma prática social criadora, a pesquisa refletiu sobre o papel do consumidor como ativo – sendo fandom, professor, aluno, idealizador, staff – exercendo posicionamentos estratégicos diante de escolhas de bens que abrem possibilidades inventivas, mantendo dinâmicas sociais próprias. Enfatizando o Studio Made In PB como parte das manifestações das culturas juvenis em João Pessoa, a análise desta pesquisa possibilitou conhecer os processos de construção de códigos de reconhecimento junto a outros grupos sociais em uma das atividades mais importantes do grupo perante seus pares: o evento “HQPB: quadrinhos e cultura pop na Paraíba”, ocorrido entre o mês de Novembro de 2014. Sobretudo, a pesquisa etnográfica, com duração de quase 18 meses, buscou entender estes atores dentro do contexto da condição pós-moderna, em que estes, mesmos envolvidos em complexos jogos de signos, pelas vias do consumo, legitimam suas disposições entre si e entre os pares, consolidando ou reforçando a manutenção de vínculos em torno da chamada cultura pop.