Christian Popular Culture from The Chronicles of Narnia to Duck Dynasty

“Eleanor Nickel’s Christian Popular Culture does a great service for both creators and consumers. She looks at a variety of popular cultural works and asks a single profound question: Does this work represent its characters as complex, nuanced persons created in God’s image, or does it take a denigrating shortcut by using racist or sexist stereotypes and clichés. She is careful to give credit where credit is due but is not shy about calling creators to account when their works fall short. She is a first-rate literary scholar and has a keen eye for detail. My hope is that her work as a critic might help Christian popular culture mature as an art form.”


—Ted Turnau, Anglo-American University, Prague





“Eleanor Hersey Nickel’s work provides a timely and much-needed examination of Christianity and popular culture. While some of her texts, such as Duck Dynasty and Left Behind, are ignored or dismissed by other scholars, Hersy Nickel treats each of her selected texts with respect, dignity, and academic rigor. Her analysis goes beyond religion to analyze the gendered and racial implications found in each text. Her work is essential reading for scholars of popular culture.”


—Melanie Cattrell, Blinn College