High Theory/Low Culture

Even those of us who pride ourselves on our discriminating taste, cosmopolitanism and sophistication have been seen with our noses in the sort of newspapers that have in their recurring cast Bigfoot, UFOs, and anonymous unclad women on the inside pages. Brottman (language and literature, Maryland Institute College of Art) uses the theories and methods of "high culture" criticism to examine why we love "low culture" so much, finding the latter serves us at the visceral level, satisfying our needs psychically and emotionally, and providing us with a sort of intellectual baseline we tell ourselves is served by myth or perhaps by the adventure narrative. Besides, even the most blase must admit we are most human when we are most curious. Annotation c2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)