Wildest Dreams: The Pervasive Irony of Taylor Swift’s 1989

March 2, 2016

I can honestly say that I liked Taylor Swift since she became cool. I am in the deepest and truest …

The Tyranny of the Relevant: Thoughts on the Bible, Pop Culture, and Irrelevance

March 24, 2015

This week I’ve been wallowing in irrelevance. Nothing new there, then. But teaching a course on literature and popular culture …

May 23, 2013

“Chav” is a tricky term to pin down, but the very disagreement over its origins is revealing. Some insist it …

May 11, 2013

Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty is an astonishing work. Witty, trashy, sexy and unsettling, it rewrites the classic narrative to produce …

May 9, 2013

I found my allotted space near the top of the Royal Opera House and began the ancient English ritual of …

March 31, 2013

Rhian E. Jones is a historian and commentator on politics, music and pop culture. Her book Clampdown: Pop-cultural Wars on …

August 8, 2012

I’m very cheered to announce that I’ve just joined the team over at Bad Reputation, the popular culture and gender …

June 28, 2012

I’ve been recapping the TV show Merlin over at California Literary Review, and one of the things I’m most often …