Biography
Katie Kapurch, Ph.D. is Professor of English at Texas State University. As a scholar of pop culture, she has written widely about Disney and the Beatles, as well as other phenomena including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and the Twilight series.
Katie is currently working on several books, including two about the Disneyfication of pop and another about the mermaid as pop icon. Katie serves as co-editor of the journal AMP: American Music Perspectives.
Katie also serves as Director of Social Media for the Department of English.
Katie is currently working on several books, including two about the Disneyfication of pop and another about the mermaid as pop icon. Katie serves as co-editor of the journal AMP: American Music Perspectives.
Katie also serves as Director of Social Media for the Department of English.
Research Interests
Katie's scholarship focuses on popular phenomena at the intersections of literature, music, and film, especially folklore and fairy-tale oriented texts. She is also interested in how Disneyfied representations and marketing techniques shape products inside and outside the control of the Walt Disney Company. Her current two-book study about the Disneyfication of pop introduces a theory of hypercommodified art in the twenty-first century.
Katie's 2023 book, Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being-- and Sang Back to Them Ever After (Penn State UP, 2023) is supported by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Blackbird and is co-authored with Jon Marc Smith.
Katie's 2016 book, Victorian Melodrama in the Twenty-First Century, is about melodrama in girl culture and uses Twilight and Jane Eyre as touchstones.
In addition to many chapters and articles, Katie has also published two edited collections about the Beatles, and her current projects focus on Disney, pop music, and mermaids.
Katie's 2023 book, Blackbird: How Black Musicians Sang the Beatles into Being-- and Sang Back to Them Ever After (Penn State UP, 2023) is supported by a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Blackbird and is co-authored with Jon Marc Smith.
Katie's 2016 book, Victorian Melodrama in the Twenty-First Century, is about melodrama in girl culture and uses Twilight and Jane Eyre as touchstones.
In addition to many chapters and articles, Katie has also published two edited collections about the Beatles, and her current projects focus on Disney, pop music, and mermaids.