New Wave: Image is Everything traces the evolution of the often neglected pop music genre, new wave. Using artists from Elvis Costello to Cyndi Lauper as illustrations, the book argues that new wave was among the first flowerings of postmodern theory in popular culture.

M. King Adkins works primarily in the fields of postmodernism and popular culture. During a postdoctoral fellowship at Georgia Tech, he began seeking ways to connect these research areas to STEM education. Currently he serves as Assistant Professor of Humanities at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota.