Ray B. Browne
Encyclopedia
Ray Broadus Browne was an American educator, author, and founder of the academic study of popular culture
in the United States. He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University
(B.G.S.U.) in Bowling Green, Ohio
. He founded the first (and only) academic Department of Popular Culture at B.G.S.U. in 1972, and is the founding editor of the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of American Culture, and the Popular Press (a university-based press that published hundreds of books on popular culture). He also founded the Popular Culture Library at B.G.S.U. (which today bears his name), the Popular Culture Association, and the American Culture Association. His particular area of specialization was American popular literature, and he was an authority on Herman Melville
, Mark Twain
, the popular culture surrounding Abraham Lincoln
and the American Civil War
, and the influence of Shakespeare on American popular music. Dr. Browne died in his home in Bowling Green, Ohio on October 22, 2009.
on January 15, 1922, the youngest of four children. His father, Garfield Browne, was a bank manager and later bank president of various small-town banks in the south. Browne’s mother was Anne Nola Browne (née Trull). The family moved on numerous occasions during Ray’s early life as his father sought new opportunities in banking. Browne lived for short periods of time in Arkansas
and Florida
, and for longer periods in Epes, Alabama
and, off and on, in Millport, Alabama
. The family finally settled in Millport, where Ray graduated from high school. Browne’s father lost his bank, his job, and his life savings in the stock market crash of 1929, and he grew up in poverty during the Great Depression
.
due to the encouragement of a high school teacher, Elbert Coleman, and the financial support of his sister Joan. Following graduation, he immediately entered the U.S. Army and served in an artillery
corps in the European theater in World War II
. His unit entered Europe at Marseille
and was part of the allied thrust that drove the Germans back into Germany. His corps was in Germany at the war’s end.
Following the war, Browne was one of thousands of GIs who stayed in Europe for a year. He studied Shakespeare
and early Greek philosophy
at the University of Birmingham
and literature at the University of Nottingham
in England.
, graduating with a degree in Victorian literature
. From there he took a job teaching English at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where he was influenced by recently retired folklorist, Louise Pound
. After two years of teaching, he entered the Ph.D. program in English at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1950. His two mentors at UCLA were the famed American Studies scholar Leon Howard and well-known folklorist Wayland Hand
. Browne’s dissertation was on the topic of Alabama folksongs. His dissertation was later turned into a book entitled The Alabama Folk Lyric: A Study in the Origins and Media of Dissemination (1979)). He graduated with his Ph.D. in 1956.
Upon graduation from UCLA, Browne took a job as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland
at College Park. He served on the faculty for four years before moving to Purdue University
in Lafayette, Indiana
in 1960. His years at Purdue were distinguished by significant professional advancement. He published numerous books in the area of American culture and literature that would lay the foundation for his later works, including Critical Approaches to American Literature: Roger Williams to Herman Melville
(1965, with Martin Light), New Voices in American Studies (1966, with Donald Winkleman and Allen Hayman), and Frontiers of American Culture (1967, with Richard Crowder, Virgil Lokke, and William Stafford). His years at Purdue were also marked by a growing conviction that English departments were not teaching a wide enough spectrum of literature. In particular, Browne believed that popular literature was unduly ignored (and denigrated) by traditional academics. In 1967, Browne moved to the Department of English at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio where he saw an opportunity to begin teaching courses in Popular Culture and American Culture on a wide scale.
(JPC) in 1967 and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture
in 1968. JPC was the first peer-reviewed journal for scholarly work in the area of popular culture
. His early efforts in the Department of English led in 1973 to the establishment of a separate Department of Popular Culture which began by offering an M.A. program, followed by the establishment of the undergraduate major a year later. This department was the first formal attempt to promote serious scholarly inquiry into what most people do with most of their free time. The Department of Popular Culture quickly grew and continues to flourish at B.G.S.U. today.
Browne was named a Distinguished University Professor at BGSU in 1977 and taught there until his retirement in 1992.
In 1970, Browne founded the Popular Press to publish books on popular culture and the popular arts. His wife Pat soon became the manager of the press and was the driving force through its growth as the premier publishing outlet for academic books on popular culture until her retirement in 2002. At that point the Popular Press was acquired by the University of Wisconsin Press
.
In 1969, Browne founded and began to develop the Popular Culture Library at B.G.S.U. This library now holds 190,000 catalogued books and many hundreds of thousands of additional materials (e.g., comic book
s, fanzine
s, photos, games, postcards, posters). It is one of the most important collections of popular culture artifacts in the world. The library is now named the Ray and Pat Browne Popular Culture Library.
In 1970, Browne founded the Popular Culture Association as an organization to promote the study of popular culture. In 1979, he founded the American Culture Association to promote specifically the study of American culture, and the same year was founding editor of the Journal of American Culture.
In 1971, Browne organized the first national conference of the Popular Culture Association. This conference showcased the broad conceptual thinking and foundational ideas that would lead to the widespread teaching of popular culture at American and international universities. The conference grew quickly in size and participation, and for many years has featured the presentation of more than 2000 academic papers at each conference. The 2009 conference in New Orleans marked the 39th annual conference.
In 1979, Browne helped organize the first national conference of the American Culture Association. This conference is held in conjunction with the Popular Culture Association Conference and marked its 30th anniversary with the 2009 conference.
Browne had numerous colleagues with whom he worked in developing the academic study of popular culture, including Russel B. Nye of Michigan State University
, Marshall Fishwick
of Virginia Tech, Carl Bode of the University of Maryland
, John Cawelti of the University of Chicago
, Michael Marsden of Bowling Green State University (now Academic Vice President at St. Norbert College
), Daniel Walden of Penn State University, and Peter Rollins
of Oklahoma State University.
from 1978 until 2001. These included a 1978 conference at Chichester
, a 1980 conference at Winchester
, 1993 at York
, 1995 at Oxford
, 1997 at York, 1999 at Cambridge
, and 2001 at Cambridge.
In addition to their international conferences, Ray and Pat made two round-the-world trips on behalf of the U.S. State Department to promote the study of American popular culture. Their travels led them to the Soviet Union
, India
, Korea
, Japan
, Indonesia
, Australia
, and New Zealand
.
, twice on the Phil Donahue Show, twice on the Geraldo Rivera Show, and on BBC News
, and was quoted in hundreds of magazines and newspapers including Newsweek
, The New York Times
, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune
, People
, and many others.
Browne was re-married in 1965 to Alice Maxine (Pat) Matthews (b. 1932). They had a daughter, Alicia (b. 1967). Pat helped Ray develop the popular culture movement through her management of the Popular Press and her role as a principal organizer of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association conferences and the international popular culture conferences from the 1970s until her retirement
in 2002. She also edited the scholarly journal Clues: A Journal of Detection for many years. Ray and Pat together edited the compendium volume The Guide to United States Popular Culture (Popular Press, 2001).
Ray and Pat Browne lived in retirement in Bowling Green, Ohio where Browne continued to write and serve as book review editor for the Journal of American Culture until his death in 2009.
Additional biographical information on Ray B. Browne is available in his semi-autobiographical book Against Academia (Popular Press, 1989).
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
in the United States. He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green State University, often referred to as Bowling Green or BGSU, is a public, coeducational research university located in Bowling Green, Ohio, United States. The institution was granted a charter in 1910 by the State of Ohio as part of the Lowry Bill, which also established Kent State...
(B.G.S.U.) in Bowling Green, Ohio
Bowling Green, Ohio
Bowling Green is the county seat of Wood County in the U.S. state of Ohio. At the time of the 2010 census, the population of Bowling Green was 30,028. It is part of the Toledo, Ohio Metropolitan Statistical Area. Bowling Green is the home of Bowling Green State University...
. He founded the first (and only) academic Department of Popular Culture at B.G.S.U. in 1972, and is the founding editor of the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of American Culture, and the Popular Press (a university-based press that published hundreds of books on popular culture). He also founded the Popular Culture Library at B.G.S.U. (which today bears his name), the Popular Culture Association, and the American Culture Association. His particular area of specialization was American popular literature, and he was an authority on Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, the popular culture surrounding Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
and the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, and the influence of Shakespeare on American popular music. Dr. Browne died in his home in Bowling Green, Ohio on October 22, 2009.
Early life
Ray Browne was born in Millport, AlabamaMillport, Alabama
Millport is a town in Lamar County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 1,160.-Geography:Millport is located at .According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and 0.18% is water....
on January 15, 1922, the youngest of four children. His father, Garfield Browne, was a bank manager and later bank president of various small-town banks in the south. Browne’s mother was Anne Nola Browne (née Trull). The family moved on numerous occasions during Ray’s early life as his father sought new opportunities in banking. Browne lived for short periods of time in Arkansas
Arkansas
Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...
and Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, and for longer periods in Epes, Alabama
Epes, Alabama
Epes is a town in Sumter County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 206.-Geography:Epes is located at .According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , all of it land.-Demographics:...
and, off and on, in Millport, Alabama
Millport, Alabama
Millport is a town in Lamar County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 1,160.-Geography:Millport is located at .According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which, of it is land and 0.18% is water....
. The family finally settled in Millport, where Ray graduated from high school. Browne’s father lost his bank, his job, and his life savings in the stock market crash of 1929, and he grew up in poverty during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
.
College and World War II
Browne attended the University of AlabamaUniversity of Alabama
The University of Alabama is a public coeducational university located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States....
due to the encouragement of a high school teacher, Elbert Coleman, and the financial support of his sister Joan. Following graduation, he immediately entered the U.S. Army and served in an artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
corps in the European theater in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. His unit entered Europe at Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
and was part of the allied thrust that drove the Germans back into Germany. His corps was in Germany at the war’s end.
Following the war, Browne was one of thousands of GIs who stayed in Europe for a year. He studied Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
and early Greek philosophy
Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire...
at the University of Birmingham
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Birmingham Medical School and Mason Science College . Birmingham was the first Redbrick university to gain a charter and thus...
and literature at the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...
in England.
Early academic life
Browne returned to the United States and entered the master’s program at Columbia UniversityColumbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, graduating with a degree in Victorian literature
Victorian literature
Victorian literature is the literature produced during the reign of Queen Victoria . It forms a link and transition between the writers of the romantic period and the very different literature of the 20th century....
. From there he took a job teaching English at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where he was influenced by recently retired folklorist, Louise Pound
Louise Pound
Louise Pound was a distinguished American folklorist and college professor at the University of Nebraska.-Early life:...
. After two years of teaching, he entered the Ph.D. program in English at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1950. His two mentors at UCLA were the famed American Studies scholar Leon Howard and well-known folklorist Wayland Hand
Wayland Hand
Wayland Debs Hand was an American folklorist....
. Browne’s dissertation was on the topic of Alabama folksongs. His dissertation was later turned into a book entitled The Alabama Folk Lyric: A Study in the Origins and Media of Dissemination (1979)). He graduated with his Ph.D. in 1956.
Upon graduation from UCLA, Browne took a job as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
at College Park. He served on the faculty for four years before moving to Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
in Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette, Indiana
Lafayette is a city in and the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 67,140. West Lafayette, on the other side of the Wabash River, is home to Purdue University, which has a large impact on...
in 1960. His years at Purdue were distinguished by significant professional advancement. He published numerous books in the area of American culture and literature that would lay the foundation for his later works, including Critical Approaches to American Literature: Roger Williams to Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
(1965, with Martin Light), New Voices in American Studies (1966, with Donald Winkleman and Allen Hayman), and Frontiers of American Culture (1967, with Richard Crowder, Virgil Lokke, and William Stafford). His years at Purdue were also marked by a growing conviction that English departments were not teaching a wide enough spectrum of literature. In particular, Browne believed that popular literature was unduly ignored (and denigrated) by traditional academics. In 1967, Browne moved to the Department of English at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio where he saw an opportunity to begin teaching courses in Popular Culture and American Culture on a wide scale.
Primary academic life
In his early years at B.G.S.U., Browne founded the Journal of Popular CultureJournal of Popular Culture
The Journal of Popular Culture is a peer-reviewed journal and the official publication of the Popular Culture Association.The Journal of Popular Culture publishes academic essays on all aspects of popular or mass culture...
(JPC) in 1967 and the Center for the Study of Popular Culture
Center for the Study of Popular Culture
Center for the Study of Popular Culture may refer to:*The David Horowitz Freedom Center, founded in the 1980s by political activist David Horowitz; the center changed its name in July 2006....
in 1968. JPC was the first peer-reviewed journal for scholarly work in the area of popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
. His early efforts in the Department of English led in 1973 to the establishment of a separate Department of Popular Culture which began by offering an M.A. program, followed by the establishment of the undergraduate major a year later. This department was the first formal attempt to promote serious scholarly inquiry into what most people do with most of their free time. The Department of Popular Culture quickly grew and continues to flourish at B.G.S.U. today.
Browne was named a Distinguished University Professor at BGSU in 1977 and taught there until his retirement in 1992.
In 1970, Browne founded the Popular Press to publish books on popular culture and the popular arts. His wife Pat soon became the manager of the press and was the driving force through its growth as the premier publishing outlet for academic books on popular culture until her retirement in 2002. At that point the Popular Press was acquired by the University of Wisconsin Press
University of Wisconsin Press
The University of Wisconsin Press is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It primarily publishes work by scholars from the global academic community but also serves the citizens of Wisconsin by publishing important books about Wisconsin, the Upper Midwest, and...
.
In 1969, Browne founded and began to develop the Popular Culture Library at B.G.S.U. This library now holds 190,000 catalogued books and many hundreds of thousands of additional materials (e.g., comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s, fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s, photos, games, postcards, posters). It is one of the most important collections of popular culture artifacts in the world. The library is now named the Ray and Pat Browne Popular Culture Library.
In 1970, Browne founded the Popular Culture Association as an organization to promote the study of popular culture. In 1979, he founded the American Culture Association to promote specifically the study of American culture, and the same year was founding editor of the Journal of American Culture.
In 1971, Browne organized the first national conference of the Popular Culture Association. This conference showcased the broad conceptual thinking and foundational ideas that would lead to the widespread teaching of popular culture at American and international universities. The conference grew quickly in size and participation, and for many years has featured the presentation of more than 2000 academic papers at each conference. The 2009 conference in New Orleans marked the 39th annual conference.
In 1979, Browne helped organize the first national conference of the American Culture Association. This conference is held in conjunction with the Popular Culture Association Conference and marked its 30th anniversary with the 2009 conference.
Browne had numerous colleagues with whom he worked in developing the academic study of popular culture, including Russel B. Nye of Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
, Marshall Fishwick
Marshall Fishwick
Marshall Fishwick was a multidisciplinary scholar, professor, writer, and editor who started the academic movement known as popular culture studies and established the journal International Popular Culture. In 1970 he cofounded the Popular Culture Association with Ray B. Browne and Russel B...
of Virginia Tech, Carl Bode of the University of Maryland
University of Maryland
When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...
, John Cawelti of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, Michael Marsden of Bowling Green State University (now Academic Vice President at St. Norbert College
St. Norbert College
St. Norbert College is a private Catholic liberal arts college in De Pere, Wisconsin. Founded in October 1898 by Abbot Bernard Pennings, a Norbertine priest and educator, the school was named after Saint Norbert of Xanten. In 1952, the college became coeducational and today enrolls about 2,175...
), Daniel Walden of Penn State University, and Peter Rollins
Peter Rollins
Peter Rollins is an Irish writer, lecturer, theologian, and philosopher who is associated with the emerging church movement and postmodern Christianity. He is also the founder of the experimental collective Ikon...
of Oklahoma State University.
International conferences and travel
As a means of promoting the academic study of popular culture internationally, Ray and Pat Browne organized numerous conferences in the United KingdomUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
from 1978 until 2001. These included a 1978 conference at Chichester
Chichester
Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...
, a 1980 conference at Winchester
Winchester
Winchester is a historic cathedral city and former capital city of England. It is the county town of Hampshire, in South East England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government district, and is located at the western end of the South Downs, along the course of...
, 1993 at York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, 1995 at Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
, 1997 at York, 1999 at Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, and 2001 at Cambridge.
In addition to their international conferences, Ray and Pat made two round-the-world trips on behalf of the U.S. State Department to promote the study of American popular culture. Their travels led them to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
.
Publicity
Ray’s work in popular culture was recognized not only in academia, but also by news organizations. Through the years he appeared twice on the CBS Evening NewsCBS Evening News
CBS Evening News is the flagship nightly television news program of the American television network CBS. The network has broadcast this program since 1948, and has used the CBS Evening News title since 1963....
, twice on the Phil Donahue Show, twice on the Geraldo Rivera Show, and on BBC News
BBC News
BBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, and was quoted in hundreds of magazines and newspapers including Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
, People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
, and many others.
Personal life
Ray married Olwyn Carmen Orde in 1952. They had three children: Glenn (b. 1956), Kevin (b. 1958), and Rowan (b. 1961). Olwyn and Rowan were killed in an automobile accident in 1964.Browne was re-married in 1965 to Alice Maxine (Pat) Matthews (b. 1932). They had a daughter, Alicia (b. 1967). Pat helped Ray develop the popular culture movement through her management of the Popular Press and her role as a principal organizer of the Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association conferences and the international popular culture conferences from the 1970s until her retirement
Retirement
Retirement is the point where a person stops employment completely. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours.Many people choose to retire when they are eligible for private or public pension benefits, although some are forced to retire when physical conditions don't allow the person to...
in 2002. She also edited the scholarly journal Clues: A Journal of Detection for many years. Ray and Pat together edited the compendium volume The Guide to United States Popular Culture (Popular Press, 2001).
Ray and Pat Browne lived in retirement in Bowling Green, Ohio where Browne continued to write and serve as book review editor for the Journal of American Culture until his death in 2009.
Other facts
Ray Browne was credited with coining the term "popular culture" in 1967; however, he did not originate this term. In 1973, Browne created the first academic program dedicated to studying popular culture at Bowling Green University. Browne created this program because he wanted to know the effects of society on culture and the effects of culture on society. Browne stressed to scholars that it was important to learn about the irrelevant changes in peoples' lives. However, many scholars criticized Browne for trying to belittle their teachings when he created the "popular culture department". Browne's work inspired other universities to offer classes that explore popular culture.Additional biographical information on Ray B. Browne is available in his semi-autobiographical book Against Academia (Popular Press, 1989).
External links
- http://www.americanpopularculture.com/journal/articles/fall_2002/browne.htm
- http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/pcl/page42606.html
- Washington Post: Professor saw the potential in studying pop culture