Learning the Left

Popular Culture, Liberal Politics, and Informal Education from 1900 to the Present

Edited by:
Paul J. Ramsey, Eastern Michigan University

Published 2015

Learning the Left examines the ways in which young people and adults learned (and continue to learn) the tenets of liberal politics in the United States through the popular media and the arts from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. This collection of essays foregrounds mass culture as an educational site; it is hoped that this focus on the history of the civic functions of the popular media and arts will begin a much-needed conversation among a variety of scholars, notably historians of education.

CONTENTS
Introduction: Popular Culture, Learning, and the Left, Paul J. Ramsey. 1. Learning to Listen: Conflicts between Youth and Adults regarding the Phonograph in the Early-Twentieth Century, Jacob Hardesty. 2. Fanning the Flames of Discontent: Inciting Teachings of the Wobblies, Daniel Dethrow. 3. Teaching Children the “Real” Story: Oppositional Children’s Literature, 1920–1940, Hani Morgan. 4. A Green Peace Tinted Red: Cold War America in The Boy with Green Hair, Peter W. Lee. 5. Learning the Political Left through Popular Novels: Howard Fast, Historical Fiction, and the Cold War, Paul J. Ramsey. 6. Pedagogy of the Radical Black Press, Khuram Hussain. 7. Learning the Underground: Plastic Childhood and Popular Culture, Marek Tesar. 8. Books Are Weapons in the War of Ideas: Educational Reform in Popular Texts, Richard Ognibene. Index.