Selling Digital Music, Formatting Culture documents the transition of recorded music on CDs to music as digital files on computers. More than two decades after the first digital music files began circulating in online archives and playing through new software media players, we have yet to fully internalize the cultural and aesthetic consequences of these shifts. Tracing the emergence of what Jeremy Wade Morris calls the “digital music commodity,” Selling Digital Music, Formatt...

Podcasting burst onto the media landscape in the early 2000s. At the time, there were hopes it might usher in a new wave of amateur and professional cultural production and represent an alternate model for how to produce, share, circulate, and experience new voices and perspectives. Twenty years later, podcasting is at a critical juncture in its relatively young history: a moment where the early ideals of open standards and platform-neutral distribution are giving way to services that prio...

The definitive history of the report card.Report cards represent more than just an account of academic standing and attendance. The report card also serves as a tool of control and as a microcosm for the shifting power dynamics among teachers, parents, school administrators, and students. In Report Cards: A Cultural History, Wade H. Morris tells the story of American education by examining the history of this unique element of student life.In the n...

Snapchat. WhatsApp. Ashley Madison. Fitbit. Tinder. Periscope. How do we make sense of how apps like these-and thousands of others-have embedded themselves into our daily routines, permeating the background of ordinary life and standing at-the-ready to be used on our smartphones and tablets? When we look at any single app, it's hard to imagine how such a small piece of software could be particularly notable. But if we look at a collection of them, we see a bigger picture that reveals how t...

Teaching Enslavement in American History provides classroom teachers with the resources necessary to navigate one of the most difficult topics in any history course. This volume is the product of a collaboration between three university professors and a team of experienced middle and high school teachers. Its nine chapters include the context for topics like the middle passage, the Constitution’s position on enslavement, African cultural retention, and resistance to enslavement. T...