Dr. Ray Broadus Browne (1922-2009)

The Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Ray Broadus Browne (1922-2009), a visionary and pioneer in the academic study of popular culture.  A folklorist and literary scholar, Dr. Browne was instrumental in the expansion of popular culture studies and founded the Center for Popular Culture Studies, the BGSU Department of Popular Culture, the Popular Press (now at the University of Wisconsin), the Popular Culture Association, the Journal of Popular Culture, and the Popular Culture Library, which now bears the names of he and his wife, Alice Maxine “Pat” Browne (1932-2013).

“Popular culture is the voice of democracy, democracy speaking and acting, the seedbed in which democracy grows.  It is the everyday world around us; the mass media, entertainments and diversions.  It is our heroes, icons, rituals, everyday actions, psychology and religion—our total life picture.  It is the way of living we inherit, practice, and modify as we please, and how we do it.  It is the dreams we dream while asleep.”