Ray B. Browne

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Ray Broadus Browne (/braʊn/; January 15, 1922 – October 22, 2009),^[1] was an American educator, author, and founder of the academic study of popular culture in the United States. He was Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Bowling Green, Ohio. He founded the first (and only) academic Department of Popular Culture at BGSU in 1972, and is the founding editor of the Journal of Popular Culture, the Journal of American Culture, and the Popular Press (a university-based press that published hundreds of books on popular culture). He also founded the Library for Popular Culture Studies (BPCL) at BGSU (which today bears his name), the Popular Culture Association, and the American Culture Association. His particular area of specialization was American popular literature, and he was an authority on Herman Melville, Mark Twain, the popular culture surrounding Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War, and the influence of Shakespeare on American popular music.