September 2025 

Meet Kathy Merlock Jackson

 

1. How did you first become involved with the Popular Culture Association, and what inspired you to join PCA?

My brother Ray, who was in a Ph.D. program at Ohio University, introduced me to PCA and encouraged me to present a paper at the national conference in Pittsburgh when I was completing my master's thesis on Oscar Wilde's fairy tales at Ohio State University. That was in 1979, and I have been involved with PCA ever since. I went on to get a Ph.D. in American culture, with an emphasis in radio-television-film and popular culture, at Bowling Green State University, and came to know Ray and Pat Browne and their work with the associations, their accompanying journals, the Popular Press, and the Popular Culture Library. I started as a PCA area chair in children's culture and progressed to the board from there, eventually becoming editor of The Journal of American Culture and president of PCA.

 

2. Could you tell us a bit about your specific research interests within popular culture studies?

My areas of interest are media studies and children's culture. My Ph.D. dissertation was on images of children in American film, and I have been following childhood studies and media representations of children and youth ever since. This approach led me to the field of Disney studies, and I have since written or edited five books on Disney, with two more in progress, one on Disney animals and the other on Disney remakes. I also study toys, media for and about children, and popular films. More recently, I have merged these interests with the field of animal studies and currently serve with Kathy Stolley as co-chair of the Animals and Popular Culture area at PCA. 

 

3.) What does the PCA community mean to you?

The PCA community means everything to me! It is my professional home. It has given me encouragement, fueled my scholarly interests, supported my efforts, and set me on my career pathway. The connections I have formed through PCA with publishers, editors, librarians, the PCA governing board, the PCA endowment board and numerous scholars and educators have been invaluable. PCA is a welcoming place for everyone.

 

4. Outside of your work and research, what's a favorite hobby or a fun fact about you that most people might not know?

My mother was Italian and a fabulous baker, and her love of baking inspired me. I especially like making different kinds of biscotti for the holidays. As for a fun fact, most people don't know that while I was in high school I worked at a small drugstore that was a money-laundering operation for the Mafia, although I didn't know it at the time.

 

5.) What's one aspect of your academic or professional journey that you're particularly proud of?

I began editing The Journal of American Culture when Ray Browne stepped down, and I continued doing so for fifteen years. This enabled me to learn so much about PCA scholars and the amazing work that they do. I love the collaborative process of working with authors and trying to make their essays sing.  My experience with The Journal of American Culture provided me with the skills and contacts I needed to edit books in the field, and I have co-edited various volumes with Mark I. West, Phil Simpson, Carl Sederholm, Kathy Stolley, Lisa Lyon Payne, and Douglas Brode on topics such as Disney, animals, and popular films. Editing collections involves building scholarly communities, and that has been an important part of my academic journey.  

 

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August 2025

 

 

Meet Long-Time PCA Members: Rachel and Deb Schaffer

 

 

1. Reflecting on your longstanding involvement, could you share your earliest memories of the Popular Culture Association and what first drew you to become a member of PCA?

 

Deb: I joined PCA in 1988, after several years of presenting at linguistics and English conferences, primarily because several colleagues in my department presented at PCA and were enthusiastic about the experience. I enjoyed that conference very much and appreciated the variety of disciplines represented there, the great people I met, and the chance to present on a less technical topic than I normally did for my linguistics conferences. Since then, I’ve given a paper at the conference every year it’s been held, with a small number of them turning into publications I’m very proud of.

 

Rachel: My response is basically the same as Deb’s. It was so much fun to attend a

conference with people I knew and make many more friends there. I soon became a life member because I could see that I would want to keep attending the conference every year. Everyone at PCA was, and is, friendly and welcoming, and my professional and personal networks have grown greatly over the years, leading to opportunities I would never have had elsewhere.

 

2. Over the years, how have your research interests within popular culture studies evolved, and are there particular topics you still find especially engaging?

 

Rachel: I began academic life as an acoustic phonetician, a technical subspecialty of linguistics that required equipment that my new academic home didn’t have (this was before the desktop revolution that changed everything). I needed a more accessible area of research to pursue in my quest for tenure and promotion, and attending the PCA conference helped me find one that I enjoyed. For two years, I presented in the Comics and Comic Art area, but a colleague turned me on to the joys of mystery and detective fiction, and from 1990 on, I’ve been presenting and publishing in that area. I also like to stay in touch with the Language Attitudes and Popular Linguistics area because language topics still fascinate me.

 

Deb: My research has always focused on language, but over the years, I’ve been able to present papers in the Language Attitudes and Popular Linguistics area exploring a wide variety of linguistic phenomena integral to popular culture, from conversational behaviors, language humor, and vocabulary used in various media (TV, popular magazines, tabloid newspapers) to prescriptive and descriptive language attitudes demonstrated in public discourse and most recently, language features of partisan political e-mails and Nigerian-fraud e-mails. I’ve found all of these topics fascinating and fun to examine using nontechnical methods more accessible to a general, non-linguistics-trained audience, and I still revisit some older topics to update my earlier analyses.

 

3. With your deep experience in the organization, what does the PCA community mean to you, and how have you seen it change or grow?

 

Deb: I love the whole concept of popular culture as an area worthy of academic

investigation—or rather, as an umbrella bringing together a multitude of different disciplines and topics to further our understanding of larger cultural and intellectual concerns. So I greatly admire the trailblazers who fought to establish the worth of everyday culture as an object of study (thank you, Ray and Pat Browne and so many others!) and the many people who have furthered popular culture studies for so many decades now. PC studies have become more widely accepted in academe, by and large, and venues for PC presentations and publications have grown in number, but I’d say the PCA community is still the heart of popular-culture studies, a diverse and intellectually dynamic group of seekers after Cultural understanding with a capital C.

 

Rachel: “PCA community” is exactly the right term for the wonderfully warm and welcoming people I’ve gotten to know over the years. Unlike some organizations and conferences I’ve heard about, there is no academic or social snobbery in PCA, only support, encouragement, and mentoring for all scholars at every level pursuing research in any area of popular culture. I remember seeing Ray and Pat Browne holding court in hotel public spaces, surrounded by fans and admirers thanking them for their lasting contributions to the growth and success of research in areas that might be scorned by other organizations. PCA is truly a most democratic group, in the original sense of the word.

 

4. Beyond your academic and research life, is there a favorite hobby or interesting fact about yourself that even longtime colleagues might not know?

 

Rachel: I love photography, both taking pictures and admiring others’, watching movies, and reading, especially mysteries by women authors and those set in Montana. I’m also what I call a militant sinistral: I believe that lefthanders are discriminated against thoughtlessly and needlessly by the righthanded majority, who should be educated from an early age about the needs and inalienable rights of lefties. Left on!

 

Deb: I do have a deep, dark secret—I have an identical twin who’s also a longtime member of the PCA. But in case that fact has become too well known, I’ll also mention a childhood accomplishment I don’t usually have any reason to bring up: I won a local piano competition when I was 13, the height of my musical career.

 

5. Looking back on your involvement with PCA and your academic journey, is there an accomplishment or moment you’re especially proud of?

 

Deb: I’m definitely proud of chairing the Language Attitudes and Popular Linguistics

interest area for 15 years (1991-2005). It’s a small area, but language is a vital aspect of popular culture to have represented at the conference, so I’m grateful I was able to provide necessary leadership during those years, and I have continued to enjoy participating in the area since then. I’m also proud of becoming a Life Member of PCA, of contributing to the endowment and the 55 Club, and of being considered a real part of the popular-culture-studies community.

 

Rachel: I remember vividly how thrilled I was when my first mystery essays were published, first by The Armchair Detective and then by Clues: A Journal of Detection and The Journal of Popular Culture. Quite a few publishing opportunities came from contacts I made at PCA conferences, and I have been able to meet a number of well-known scholars and writers in the field thanks to Mystery and Detective Fiction Area activities. One huge highlight was the chance to interview Sara Paretsky, author of the critically acclaimed V.I. Warshawski series, at the 2024 PCA conference.