Cultural Studies of LEGO

Rebecca C. Hains is Professor of Media and Communication at Salem State University, USA. The author of Growing Up With Girl Power: Girlhood on Screen and in Everyday Life (2012) and The Princess Problem: Guiding Our Girls Through the Princess-Obsessed Years (2014), her research appears in scholarly anthologies and journals including Feminist Media Studies, Popular Communication, and Girlhood Studies.Sharon R. Mazzarella is Professor of Communication Studies at James Madison University, USA. She is the author of Girls, Moral Panic and News Media: Troublesome Bodies (2020), and the editor or co-editor of seven academic collections. She also edits “Mediated Youth,” a series of cutting-edge books on cultural studies of youth.

• Introduction - Rebecca Hains & Sharon R. Mazzarella.- SECTION ONE:  LEGO AS Media Text.- In a “Justice” League of their Own: Transmedia Storytelling and Paratextual Reinvention in LEGO’s Animated Tales - Lincoln Geraghty (Reader, Media & Performing Arts, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom).- Lego Batman as a Gateway Commodity Intertext - Matthew McAllister (Professor, Communications, Penn State University), Jared LaGroue (Ph.D. Candidate, Communications, Penn State University).- Everything is Awesome When You’re Part of a List: The Flattening of Distinction in Post-Ironic LEGO Media - Ari Mattes (Lecturer, University of Notre Dame, Australia).- LEGO Porn: A Perverse and Knowing Pleasure - Shannon Brownlee (Assistant Professor, Cinema & Media Studies/Gender & Women’s Studies, Dalhousie University, Canada).- SECTION TWO: Growing up with LEGO.- Creating a Bricktacular Experience: An Examination of American Legoland Resort through the Lens of Gender, Social Class and Play - Kimberly Wilmot Voss (Associate Professor, Journalism, University of Central Florida).- You’re Never Too Old for LEGO:  Mobilizing Adult Fans of LEGO.- Nancy A. Jennings (Associate Professor, Communication, University of Cincinnati) - Matthew Szekeresh (M.A. Student, Communication, University of Cincinnati).- “Not Enough of the LEGOs are Marked ‘Girls'”: The Implications of the Gendered Marketing of LEGO Toys - Rebecca Hains (Professor, Media & Communication, Salem State University), Jennifer Shewmaker (Professor, Psychology, Abilene Christian University).- “Storm in a Toybox:” The Public Discourse over LEGO Friends, the Cultural Construction of Gender, and the Role of Academic Gender Research - Sharon R. Mazzarella (Professor, Communication Studies, James Madison University).- SECTION THREE: The Politics of Representation in the LEGO Franchise.- Yellow is White UnlessOtherwise Stated: The Missing Fine Print in the LEGO Universe - Guillermo Avila-Saavedra (Associate Professor, Media & Communication, Salem State University).- A License to Diversify: How Media Franchising Challenges the “Universal” LEGO Mini-Figure - Derek Johnson (Associate Professor, Media & Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin).- The Man behind the Mask: Masculinity in LEGO Batman - Kyra Hunting (Assistant Professor, Journalism & Media, University of Kentucky).- The Representation of Animals in LEGO building sets and media - Debra Merskin (Professor, Journalism & Communication, University of Oregon)