Q + A: Professor Felicia Campbell

Friday, Jan. 27, 2006 | 8:23 a.m.

UNLV English professor Felicia Campbell has been executive director of the Far West Popular Culture Associations and Far West American Culture Association since 1989 and facilitates annual meetings for the organizations.

She was president of the national Pop Culture Association from 1993 to 1995 and is editor of the academic journal Popular Culture Review.

Las Vegas Sun: Why do you think it is important to study popular culture?

Felicia Campbell: It's part of examining our lives. It's that old cliche that the unexamined life isn't worth living. There is all sorts of propaganda being put out. You need to watch a movie intelligently, just as you'd read a book intelligently, and look at what is seeping into your consciousness.

Sun: And if we don't look at ourselves?

FC: We don't have a chance to form our society. Anybody who thinks that pop culture doesn't influence what we do, what we say and eat and who we are, is not paying attention. It's America's greatest export.

Sun: It sounds like you've had to argue its relevance.

FC: Pop culture has had a long, hard battle in getting recognized.

Sun: Why would that be if it's an introspective look at society?

FC: I didn't say it was a sensible argument. I just said it was a traditional argument.

Sun: Does popular culture create us or do we create it?

FC: I teach chaos theory. Everything is so connected; if you try to break it up and say, "This causes this and that causes that," it won't work.

Sun: What have you learned about us socially?

FC: I think we're in a scary time. If you look at our greed, our waste, a lot of what we're doing is pretty ugly stuff and we do seem to be riding a crest of some sort.

Sun: Why hold the conferences in Las Vegas?

FC: It makes more sense to have a pop culture conference coming out of the pop culture center of the United States.

Also, We need to feed off of each other and we're still sort of isolated here in Las Vegas.

Sun: Pop culture covers everything. Is there anything that doesn't draw interest?

FC: We've got two sections on cemeteries and grave markers and believe me, there's a whole cadre of people interested in cemeteries and grave markers.

Kristen Peterson can be reached at 259-2317 or at kristen@lasvegassun.com.