I just stumbled across this blog—Christ and Pop Culture—which looks fairly promising. As a burgeoning McCarthy fan, I found the review of No Country for Old Men very balanced and insightful. (Great film by the way, if you can stomach the violence.)
Tag: pop culture
The Cultural Elite are No More!
A UK study claims that the cultural elite are no more, the kind of people who prefer high culture over pop culture: “We find little evidence for the existence of a cultural elite who would consume ‘high’ culture while shunning more ‘popular’ cultural forms.
This study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, included the US in its study dividing people into four groups: univores, omnivores, paucivores, and inactives.
- Univores: only like popular culture
- Omnivores: like everything from opera to soap opera
- Paucivores: (taken from “paucity”?): absorb very little culture
- Inactives: absorb practically none.
Researchers concluded that social status, from vocation, not social class, from wealth or birth, are more determinative for cultural taste and preference. They also concluded that cultural elitist are no more, that at most we are omnivores, a kind of cultural eclectic. You you agree? Which category would you claim, if any?
Top Books for 2007 (that I actually read)
Here is a sundry list of things I read that made a particular impression on me this year. They were not all published this year. They are not necessarily my favorites, and they include fiction, non-fiction, previously read, etc. In no particular order…
Books:
- Falling Man, Don DeLillo.
- Harrison Bergeron, Curt Vonnegut
- Central Themes in Biblical Theology, ed. Hafemann & House
- Seeing Through Cynicism, Dick Keyes
- Total Church, Chester & Timmis
- Paul: A Fresh Perspective, N. T. Wright
- n + 1. a twice-yearly print journal of politics, literature, and culture.
- How Children Raise Parents, Dan Allender.
- The Moral Vision of the New Testament, Richard Hays
- Disciples of All Nations, Lamin Sanneh
Articles:
- “Converts or Proselytes?: The Crisis Over Conversion in the Early Church,” Andrew Walls IBMR 28
- “Anaesthetic Ideology,” Mark Greif n+1 vol. 5
- “Things I Wish I Had Known When I Planted My Church,” Next Wave
T-Magazine
Check out the new online magazine from NY Times, the electronic upgrade of their print magazine (which often has great articles and book reviews). Here is their description of T:
“T translates the print magazine content and sensibility into an immersive, online experience. T is not your conventional online magazine. It is full of visual surprises…”