(bright music) - Hello and welcome to "Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

We delve into the realm of the superhero.

Our guests are from the BGSU Department of Popular Culture, Dr. Matt Donahue, and Tyne Lowe, manuscript archivist at the Browne Popular Culture Library.

Thank you for both being here.

We're going to talk about celebrating Spider-Man and popular culture, but first of all, Matt, talk a little about the Department of Culture, and then we'll talk about the Browne Popular Culture Library.

- Sure, the Department of Popular Culture, we celebrate our 50th anniversary this year, and we'll do more celebrations next year.

The Department of Popular Culture was started by Dr. Ray Browne in 1973, and he had a folklore English background.

And one thing he wanted to do was create a department to study everyday life is really what we define popular culture as.

Ray Browne was a doer and he started the Department of Popular Culture got that off the ground.

The Department of Popular Culture offers a variety of courses on anything and everything in everyday life.

And we have an undergraduate degree that folks can get in the Department of Popular Culture through Department of Popular Culture.

We also offer a master's degree in the Department of Popular Culture.

And, also, there's a PhD connection that we have through the American Culture Studies Department where folks can get a PhD through the American Culture Studies Program with an emphasis in popular culture.

It should be noted that when Dr. Ray Browne started the Department of Popular Culture, there was a lot of resistance towards the study of popular culture.

Not necessarily here at BGSU, but in the realm of academia.

[Steve] And why was that?

They just didn't think it was academic enough, or?

-[Matt] You know, other academics, dare I say it, felt that studying popular culture wasn't worthy of study, that everyday life wasn't worthy of study.

And the ironic part about it is, is that through all these kind of trials and tribulations and sort of battles that Ray Browne had in academia, he really came out on top because by the late 1980s and into the '90s, all the way to the present, it's become hip to study popular culture in the academic setting setting.

And while you may not find a Department of Popular Culture at specific universities, you will find different universities offering courses related to popular culture, but it should be noted that the Department of Popular Culture helped put Bowling Green State University on the map.

And, again, Ray Browne was a doer.

So not only did he start the Department of Popular Culture, he also also started the Popular Culture Association, a variety of regional popular culture associations, but also he was forward thinking because he created what's now called the Browne Popular Culture Library with Professor Bill Shirk, who also he and Ray Browne, Professor Bill Shirk and Ray Browne started the Popular Culture Library, which is now the Browne Popular Culture Library and also the Sound Recordings Archives, which is one of the largest collections of popular music in the world.

And both of those facilities are meant to serve students, faculty, and outside researchers, and the public towards all things popular music for the Sound Recordings Archives, and all things popular culture for the Popular Culture Library, which my colleague, Tyne Lowe, can speak to about their collection and what they provide.

-[Steve] Yeah, because obviously when people talk about popular culture, we think of entertainment right away, how it influences what we do, how it's in all aspects of our life.

Tyne, when you talk of the things you have at the Browne Popular Culture Library, probably an array of items and manuscripts and collections, and things that probably some people would say, oh, I didn't think about that being a popular culture thing that would impact us.

So talk a little about what you do, and what the library's like.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So I work at the Browne Popular Culture Library, which was named after Ray and Pat Browne, Pat being his wife.

It was established in 1969 and just like Matt was saying, it serves the popular culture researchers here at BGSU, but also researchers from throughout the country and throughout the world who are studying popular culture.

We consider ourselves the most comprehensive collection of popular culture materials, especially about North American popular culture here in the United States, possibly the world for some of our collections.

One of our strengths is genre fiction, especially romance fiction, but we also have an excellent collection of mystery, but our collection is, it's very difficult to describe just in one sentence.

- [Steve] Okay, sure.

You can use more than one sentence go ahead.

- I'll use as many as I can.

- [Steve] Absolutely.

- We have an excellent collection of movie and television history.

We have press kits, we have scripts.

We have obviously comic books and graphic novels from throughout the history of when D.C. got established through today.

We have manuscripts, especially for genre authors.

I work with a lot of manuscripts written by romance and mystery writers, as well as organizations for such genres like the Romance Writers of America, mystery writers, which is a really fantastic resource for people who are studying that type of literature.

Toys, obviously, we collect realia, so not just things for adults, but also things for children.

And we have an excellent collection of fandoms.

So materials, not just the things that fans love, but also the things that fans make themselves so fanzines from throughout the years.

"Star Trek" is one of our strengths, but also fan-made materials are really special in our collection.

- And that's interesting you mentioned the fact that things that average people make, the things which gets into that sort of like that folk part that you were talking about.

Because we talk about folk art and this is sort of an extension of that into popular culture.

When people come to research, I mean, what's the main thing they come to look at the romance novels, the writing, the manuscripts?

I mean, what would be an example of some of the scripts you would have that people would be familiar with?

[Tyne] We have, and I don't want to make any promises about what we have, but we have plenty of popular television shows and plenty of popular movies.

I think we have a lot of sitcoms from throughout the years.

"All in the Family," "Frasier," that kind of thing.

- [Steve] Oh, okay.

- Yeah, sometimes in our manuscript collections we'll have, like, edited drafts so you can kind of see how a story became the story that we know today.

So we can see the edits that got made over the years, which is really exciting.

- Yeah, yeah, for people who are interested because you see the finished product, and we always talk about when we do production here that what you're seeing is really a small portion of what went into getting it to that point.

And obviously if you've watched an episode of a TV show, or a movie, the script, it probably originally looks in some ways probably nothing at all like the finished product.

And if you're interested in that kind of thing, yeah, you could see the evolution and maybe as it develops a character improvising something that then becomes part of the script that wasn't there before so it's pretty interesting.

Now just a moment, is there one item or a few items you'd say, these are really unique to us, or these are things that people might be surprised that we have?

I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot, but I'm sure that, yeah, there's, yeah, what would be the one thing people say, oh, I'm surprised they have that, or I didn't think about that being a popular culture item?

- Hmm, that's a great question.

And it's so hard to narrow it down to really just one.

I recently got out for a class a lot of fanzines that we have.

And it is really spectacular to see sometimes someone who might've become a big, like, graphic novelist, someone who became a very popular cartoonist to see things that they made sort of for themselves for a very small fan community and might have just dashed off on a xerox machine.

So sort of seeing where someone began is really exciting, but I suppose that could easily be considered popular culture.

- [Steve] Sure.

- Some of the things, like the things we have right here on the table are things that might be kind of surprising.

For example, this is a box of Spider-Man toilet paper.

So thinking of toilet paper as popular culture.

- [Steve] Well, it's kind of an everyday item.

- Right, exactly.

- Is part of everyday life, so, okay, cool.

Well, when we can come back, we can talk a little more about that too.

And then we can obviously get into the Spider-Man in popular culture part of this as well.

So back in just a moment with Tyne Lowe, manuscript archivist at the Browne Popular Culture Library, and Dr. Matt Donahue, from the Department of Popular Culture at BGSU.

Back in just a second.

Thank you for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guests are Dr. Matt Donahue from the BGSU, Department of Popular Culture, and Tyne Lowe, manuscript archivist at the Browne Popular Culture Library here at BGSU.

Matt, when we think about popular culture, I know we're looking at items that are obviously media related, entertainment related, but also literary related as well.

And I think that's probably one of the things people don't think about is literary items as part of popular culture.

We just sort of take them for granted, like we do a lot of these items, so talk about that.

And, again, maybe when Dr. Browne started this, what were some of the first things he started to collect, or they said, hey, we need to have these in our collection.

This is what our department should be like.

What were some of those original ideas and items?

- Sure, I mean, for folks who are interested in terms of the study of popular culture and the early beginnings of the Department of Popular Culture and Ray Browne's work in the field of popular culture, folks might want to check out two books.

One is by Ray Browne, it's called "Against Academia."

And it highlights the formation of the Department of Popular Culture and the history of not only the Department of Popular Culture, but also the Popular Culture Association and some of the other things that he did.

So it's important to note, not only did he start the Department of Popular Culture, but he really did so much, he was sort of like the Pied Piper, if you will, for popular culture.

And there's another great book called "On the Cultural Studies Revolution" by Dr. Ray Browne.

It's edited by Dr. Ben Urish, who was one of Dr. Browne's students.

And he's worked quite closely with Dr. Browne on this particular publication.

And it's sort of like a greatest hits of his writings on popular culture.

And, again, it cannot be underestimated, his influence and his ability to get things done.

And this is kind of like something that myself, my colleagues in the Department of Popular Culture, the folks at the Browne Popular Culture Library have tried to adopt this kind of get it done doer spirit, if you will, for all the different kind of collaborations that we've gone through.

And in terms of getting kind of the libraries off of the ground, Dr. Ray Browne and Professor Bill Shirk both worked collaboratively, and they would go all over not only the state of Ohio, but also different parts of the country in search of popular culture collections, but also popular music collections.

[Steve] Sure.

[Matt] And that's also something that's unique.

And, again, this idea of having these two facilities where this everyday life material is housed, that is also unique and that's something very unique to BGSU, that BGSU can take great pride in, not only in the Department of Popular Culture being one of a kind in the country and in the world, but also for the Sound Recordings Archives and the Browne Popular Culture library.

[Steve] Right.

Now, Tyne, obviously Matt mentioned a lot of collaboration that goes on.

Is there a lot of competition for things that you want to get, I mean, 'cause obviously now with this being something that's spread across academia, there's probably a lot of demand for these collections and items.

Is that sort of a competitive field to say, no, we want to get this for our library, somebody else is also saying, no, we want it for ours.

Any push and pull in that or not?

- No, not too much that I've experienced myself in acquisitions, it's possible, but kind of the convenient thing about collecting popular culture is that we often, with the exception of some things like fan-made materials, or particularly rare materials, a lot of what we collect is things that were mass produced for which there are many, hopefully, many copies.

Something we run into sometimes if we want, say, for example, a really complete run of "National Enquirer," which we have almost every "National Enquirer," which you'd be surprised how often those are used for research.

This is the kind of material that at one point would've been so readily available in something like grocery store checkout lines, but now finding one that hadn't been thrown away, hadn't been water damaged, something like that, because a lot of what we really collect a lot are materials that many people might not consider worthy of collecting.

- [Steve] Saving, sure.

- Because they are maybe not too monetarily valuable in some cases, not all cases.

So sometimes that really is the challenge to find something that managed to survive because everyday wear and tear.

- [Steve] It got used, yeah.

- Yeah, exactly.

- And toys are like that a little, because I know that sometimes the things that were the cheapest were considered, like, the entry level whatever, those were played with, they were used, they were worn out.

So finding something that hasn't been as you described, rolled up, curled up, folded up, thrown, buried, stored in the basement where it got wet.

When it comes to, especially, paper items, the same sort of thing.

How do the collections, how do you find out about them, or do people come to you and say, look, we've got this collection, are you interested?

There's probably like some sort of, like, some research that has to go into finding collections, things like that?

- A little bit.

It is a little bit more the latter where most of the time we are primarily donation-based.

So most of the time people will be coming to us, maybe they're looking through their estate, they're looking to downsize, or they've heard about us.

Maybe alumni will come to us who already know about our reputation and want us to have some materials.

If our strengths line up with what they are offering, we're able to consider it.

We will occasionally seek out materials, but primarily we do deal with lots and lots of donors.

- [Steve] Yeah.

- Yeah.

- And there are certain specific areas that you're interested in because obviously you can't cover everything that would be part of popular culture.

That would take a building much larger, probably the entire campus to do that, but are there certain things that you would appreciate if people would call you and say, hey, by the way, we've got this.

So yeah, would that be, like, comic books, and things like that, and romance, novel documents, things of that nature?

- Absolutely, yeah.

So comic books, romance books, those are two of our major strengths for which we're always looking for more.

Romance papers, like you're saying.

One of our big strengths that we're always looking to grow in is pulp magazines.

So from kind of the earlier half of the 20th century.

We have a very strong collection, but we're always looking for more.

Those are some of our biggest areas.

Realia meaning basically toys or 3D objects are things that we always have a radar out for, but they can be so difficult to store just because they do take up a little bit of space.

- [Steve] The size and the shape.

- Yeah, and that's just the reality that I think all special collections have to deal with.

[Steve] Sure, sure.

And it's interesting you mentioned pulp magazines because obviously, and the "National Enquirer," which is kind of interesting because those, we look at those like, well, not everything in there was true, but then in some cases a lot of it turned out to be, but it is a reflection of what people were seeing in their day-to-day, week-to-week life about things that they thought were important to them.

So it does reflect that.

That's kind of interesting.

Now when you look at these collections, do you ever have to, are you constantly, like, maybe sifting through, and go, oh look, we've got a better copy now of this particular book or this particular script.

What happens to the things that maybe do they go just out of the research area, or do you pass them along to somebody else?

How do you recycle them I guess, if that's the right word?

- If if it's an item of particular interest and if there's certain differences between if like you were saying, sometimes we'll receive an item that's in better condition occasionally we'll keep both.

Sometimes it helps to have a preservation copy and a used copy.

Other times if just for space consideration and making sure our collection is as tight as it can be, we have certain areas.

I think Better World Books is something we'll occasionally use to donate to find sort of an ethical home for things that we can't keep in one place, yeah.

- Okay, good, good.

When we come back we'll talk Spider-Man, because we haven't gotten to tha and there's obviously a lot of ground to cover there.

Back in just a moment with Dr. Matt Donahue, Department of Popular Culture, BGSU, and Tyne Lowe, manuscript archivist, the Browne Popular Culture Library at BGSU.

Back in just a moment.

Thanks for staying with us here on "The Journal."

We're talking with Dr. Matt Donahue and Tyne Lowe, both from BGSU, both in the popular culture realm.

Big event coming up, Spider-Man and Popular Culture.

Matt, talk about that event.

It's a two-day event and it's just full of really interesting presentations and discussions and ideas and things that probably a lot of people wouldn't think about when they think about Spider-Man, or in the depth that we're talking about here.

So talk a little bit about the conference that's coming up.

- Well, we're really thrilled to have the Spider-Man in Popular Culture Conference, which is taking place on the campus at Bowling Green State University in Jerome Library in the Pallister Conference Room on Friday, September 29th and Saturday, September 30th.

It should be noted that the conference is free for presenters, but also for the public.

So if the public want to come to see some of the panels, they are welcome.

And that is something that's unique in the conference realm, but also something that's also unique is just the amazing amount of different speakers that we've got coming to talk about Spider-Man and the impact of Spider-Man in popular culture and everything from Spider-Man in law, Spider-Man in a global realm.

We have presenters coming from India talking about the impact of Spider-Man in India.

We have one of the major collectors of Spider-Man material in the world.

And so we're really trying to provide an opportunity, or an avenue, if you will, really in many ways.

I always say this, you know, the conferences is really for, it's for the presenters in many ways because they are so knowledgeable and so interested in Spider-Man.

We wanted to provide a platform for folks to come in and discuss Spider-Man, and its connection in popular culture and impact in the world.

And that is something that's unique.

We've been trying to do these conferences every other year, or every year.

More recently we did the Heavy Metal and Popular Music Conference.

We did the Electric Guitar in Popular Culture Conference.

We did the Batman in Popular Culture Conference.

And this is really an extension of that, of those conferences providing a platform that's free, which is important 'cause a lot of these conferences are pay-to-play and we really wanted to try and get away from that.

We did receive some wonderful grant funding from a variety of sources to be able to make that happen.

So that's also unusual, but also just amazing to have so many different folks involved and coming.

For instance, our keynote speakers are just amazing.

We have BGSU alum, Marc Sumerak, who is a writer for "Marvel."

He's done quite a bit of writing for Spider-Man.

We have Rick Leonardi, an artist for "Marvel," who's done quite a bit of artwork for Spider-Man.

We also have one of the collectors who presumably has one of the largest Spider-Man collections in the world.

- [Steve] That's the Spidey and Me guy, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- 50 years of collecting, yeah.

- Bruce Wechtenhiser, and he is bringing part of his collection.

And then also we like to do at these conferences is provide kind of a local/regional connection.

So we have Jim Collins coming who runs JC's Comics N' More: Pop Culture Super-Store.

He's also going to be coming talking about selling Spider-Man.

And the thing that's kind of unique about this particular character, and one reason that we chose Spider-Man is it's so easily identifiable for everyone.

There's an aspect or a part of Spider-Man, or a Spider-Man character that anybody can identify with.

Anybody can understand these kind of trials and tribulations that Peter Parker has.

- Yeah, just the average regular guy sort of.

- Exactly, exactly.

And that's something that really transcends so many different areas of race and gender and class.

It's one of those things that breaks down those barriers and believe it or not, kind of can bring people together.

And I know speaking for myself, I did not grow up from a family of privilege, and when I was nine I had to get a job to pay for the clothes on my back, my notebooks for school and clothes, and so on.

And so I got a paper route and that was for the "Toledo Blade."

And at the time I couldn't afford comic books.

I couldn't afford to go to the comic bookstore, but what was amazing is that the thing that I resonated with the most, perhaps about that job was that they would have everyday a Spider-Man segment in the comic section of "The Blade."

And that was just something that I could just totally gravitate towards and totally identify with.

So everyday that that bundle of papers would come to my house before they would be delivered, the first thing I would do is run and go to the comic page and see what was going to happen in Spider-Man because you sort of felt like all these troubles and trials and tribulations that Peter Parker was having, that's something that I was also going through at the same time in my life.

And so it's amazing to be able to kind of bring forth, and bring it forth full circle to provide a platform for all of these different folks from all around the country, and different parts of the world to be able to talk on this particular topic.

And we also will be highlighting the Browne Popular Culture Library at the conference as well.

- I know that part of that there's a listing in here and it's extensive activities, presentations, but there's a tour of the Browne Popular Culture Library.

So talk about what that'll be like for people and what they can expect to see.

- Sure, yeah, we're thrilled that we're able to host a little tour on Friday afternoon.

I think it's at 12:30 to one?

- Yeah.

- Yeah, for both the presenters, but also the attendees to be able to come up and see our collection because most of the time we are kind of a closed stacks library, so people are always welcome to visit our library, basically anytime we're open weekdays, by the way.

And so this offers a look that you can't necessarily get everyday where we go back into the stacks and take a look at sort of where the sausage is made, so to speak.

- [Steve] Yeah, behind the scenes.

- A little behind the scenes, exactly.

To see not just our collections that have strengths where Spider-Man is represented well, but also just to see the collection as a whole, to see some of the things like our periodicals, like "National Enquirer" and romance books, and things like that to sort of see Spider-Man in context.

Yeah, I've heard when we did the Batman Conference in the past that people really enjoyed being able to see from a fan perspective, but also from an academic perspective, able to see the materials.

- Yeah, and especially because they're seeing something that isn't just out, you know, regular library, the books are out there, nothing wrong with that, that's all good, but to kind of see behind the scenes and what goes on so you can then present these sort of things like this to the conference.

We're running out of time right here.

So people just need to know they can go online.

They just have to Google Spider-Man in Popular Culture and popular culture will show up and they get all the information.

And if you look at the website there, it lists all of the activities, all of the presenters, all the times, so it'll be a good thing.

And the one thing I noticed is that you've got two-year-olds, three-year-olds that know Spider-Man, and you've got people older than that that know Spider-Man.

So that says something about, as you described Matt, what he's like and how it resonates through every person's life in some way it touches them, so good, good.

Appreciate you guys coming on, thank you.

And anytime, anytime you guys have something going on, please let us know.

- Thank you, and thank you for having us.

We're really thrilled about this.

And, again, if folks are looking for information, just type in Spider-Man in Popular Culture Conference, BGSU, you'll come to the website, the schedule's listed there, and we're really thrilled to be able to provide this opportunity.

- Yeah, I'm glad we had the chance to talk about it.

So thank you again.

- [Matt] Thank you for having us.

- You can check us out at wbgu.org.

You can watch us every Thursday night at eight o'clock on WBGU-PBS.

We will see you again next time.

Goodnight and good luck.

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