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Charles Ponce de Leon, Professor of History and American Studies, is a specialist in US cultural and intellectual history.  He received his BA from UC Santa Barbara and a PhD from Rutgers University, and his fields of expertise include mass media and the commercial culture industries, American intellectual life, and modern U.S. political culture.  His research has focused on the history of American journalism and the mass media, particularly the connections between political culture and the commercial culture industries.  He has written four books: (University of North Carolina Press, 2001), a monograph examining the origins and cultural significance of human-interest journalism about celebrities in the early 1900s; (Hill and Wang, 2006), a biography of Elvis Presley; (University of Chicago Press, 2015), a history of television news in the US; and, most recently, (University of North Carolina Press, 2026). He has previously taught at Princeton University and Purchase College (SUNY) and has been at Long Beach State since 2008.