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K-State Today

October 14, 2019

Theatre professor attends research institute

Submitted by Shannon Blake Skelton

Shannon Blake Skelton, assistant professor of theatre, participated in the Popular Culture Summer Research Institute at Bowling Green State University.

Every summer, 20 scholars from around the world are invited to attend a series of workshops and classes on the Bowling Green State University campus centered on research and popular culture. Select presentations and roundtables create a learning community among scholars to share experiences, exchange ideas and cultivate collegial support among established and emerging scholars.

The workshops — sponsored by the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association — are hosted annually in conjunction with the libraries on the BGSU campus. BGSU's Browne Library for Popular Culture Studies is the most comprehensive repository of its kind in the United States. The collection's primary focus is popular fiction, popular entertainment — radio, television, film and the mass communication industry — and the graphic arts/advertising. The collection includes fanzines, comics, movie posters, postcards, greeting cards, trading cards, television episode scripts and many three-dimensional items such as action figures. BGSU's Music Library/Schurk Sound Archives is considered the nation's premier academic collection of popular music sound recordings and holds almost 1 million recordings in all formats as well as discographies, books and periodicals related to popular music and the recording industry.

Skelton's archival research at BGSU — which was funded by a grant from the Popular Culture Association — yielded unique findings regarding the marketing of horror and science fiction films from the 1940s to the present. His work will be presented at the Popular Culture Association Conference in 2020.