Download or read book The Mythmaking Frame of Mind written by James Burkhart Gilbert and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thirteen essays, written by prominent cultural and intellectual historians, illustrate some of the directions of cultural and intellectual history as it is practiced in the United States. The essays are organized chronologically with many interconnecting themes. These themes include the rise of commercial culture, the rise of city and urban life, the formation of the middle class, and the ways in which social myths (the myth of Santa Claus, for example) function to interpret the meanings of modern life.

Download or read book Celebrating the Family written by Elizabeth H. Pleck and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2000-07-04 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pleck examines changes in the way Americans celebrate holidays like Christmas or birthdays.

Download or read book New Forms of Consumption written by Mark Gottdiener and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consumption as a field of cultural studies overlaps with theories of postmodernism, the social construction of self, commodification in late capitalism, and the role of mass media in daily life. New forms of consumption such as those facilitated by cyberspace, themed environments, the commodification of sex, and the increasing role of leisure in society all play new and interesting roles in daily life that combine consumerism with the most contemporary social forms. This collection of essays examines the recent ways in which consumerism has been approached by cultural studies with special emphasis given to these and other newly emerging topics. The book is divided into three parts. The first part provides a theoretical overview of consumption studies dealing with classical and more contemporary approaches in light of the debate between advocates and critics of postmodernism. In this section there are papers on McDonaldization, tourism and cultural studies, and the Theory of Shopping. The second part emphasizes empirical studies of the commodification process. Papers address the transformation of women's bodies and the mass commodification of milk, the creation of the toddler as a subject and the commodification of childhood, the commodification of sports, and the commodification of rock music. The third section of the book explores new forms of consumption on a more detailed and concentrated level. Papers in this section include the rise of sex tourism as a global industry, the commodification of the sacred, and the emergence of new consumer spaces in the city. An introduction by the editor delineates the advantages of his approach to new forms of consumption based squarely in the emerging issues of cultural studies, debates transcending postmodernism, and the society of the spectacle.

Download or read book Undressed for Success written by B. Foley and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using the tools of performance studies, gender theory, and cultural history, Brenda Foley explores the striking similarities between beauty pageantry and striptease. For example, women in both project a 'normal' femininity and adhere to a strict hierarchy (Miss America contestants look down upon Miss Universe contestants, while theatrical 'burlesque artists' saw themselves as far above mere carnival strippers). Undressed for Success collects extensive primary source research - newspapers, journals, trade publications, photography collections, press releases, memoirs, and interviews with both strippers and pageant contestants - and employs a wide array of gender, feminist, and performance theory to analyze them.

Download or read book The Best Possible Immigrants written by Rachel Rains Winslow and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prior to World War II, international adoption was virtually unknown, but in the twenty-first century, it has become a common practice, touching almost every American. How did the adoption of foreign children by U.S. families become an essential part of American culture in such a short period of time? Rachel Rains Winslow investigates this question, following the trail from Europe to South Korea and then to Vietnam. Drawing on a wide range of political and cultural sources, The Best Possible Immigrants shows how a combination of domestic trends, foreign policies, and international instabilities created an environment in which adoption flourished. Winslow contends that international adoption succeeded as a long-term solution to child welfare not because it was in the interest of one group but because it was in the interest of many. Focusing on the three decades after World War II, she argues that the system came about through the work of governments, social welfare professionals, volunteers, national and local media, adoptive parents, and prospective adoptive parents. In her chronicle, Winslow not only reveals the diversity of interests at play but also shows the underlying character of the U.S. social welfare state and international humanitarianism. In so doing, she sheds light on the shifting ideologies of family in the postwar era, underscoring the important cultural work at the center of policy efforts and state projects. The Best Possible Immigrants is a fascinating story about the role private citizens and organizations played in adoption history as well as their impact on state-formation, lawmaking, and U.S. foreign policy.

Download or read book Farms Factories and Families written by Anthony V. Riccio and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2014-05-15 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the rich history of Italian American working women in Connecticut, including the crucial role they played in union organizing. Often treated as background figures throughout their history, Italian women of the lower and working classes have always struggled and toiled alongside men, and this did not change following emigration to America. Through numerous oral history narratives, Farms, Factories, and Families documents the rich history of Italian American working women in Connecticut. As farming women, they could keep up with any man. As entrepreneurs, they started successful businesses. They joined men on production lines in Connecticut’s factories and sweatshops, and through the strength of the neighborhood networks they created, they played a crucial role in union organizing. Empowered as foreladies, union officials, and shop stewards, they saved money for future generations of Italian American women to attend college and achieve dreams they themselves could never realize. The book opens with the voices of elderly Italian American women, who reconstruct daily life in Italy’s southern regions at the turn of the twentieth century. Raised to be caretakers and nurturers of families, these women lived by the culturally claustrophobic dictates of a patriarchal society that offered them few choices. The storytellers of Farms, Factories, and Families reveal the trajectories of immigrant women who arrived in Connecticut with more than dowries in their steam trunks: the ability to face adversity with quiet inner strength, the stamina to work tirelessly from dawn to dusk, the skill to manage the family economy, and adherence to moral principles rooted in the southern Italian code of behavior. Second- and third-generation Italian American women who attended college and achieved professional careers on the wings of their Italian-born mothers and grandmothers have not forgotten their legacy, and though Italian American immigrant women lived by a script they did not write, Farms, Factories, and Families gives them the opportunity to tell their own stories, in their own words. “Anthony Riccio’s collection of women’s oral histories is an extremely valuable addition to the growing literature regarding Italian American women’s lives. The detail in which these women speak about their work lives as charcoal burners, clay kneaders, cheese makers, union organizers—one had her ribs broken—adds a much needed dimension to an understanding of Italian American women. This volume is filled with thoughtful reflections ranging from Mussolini to issues of social justice. Riccio has unleashed from these women dramatic and sometimes harrowing stories never before heard, or perhaps even imagined.” — Carol Bonomo Albright, Executive Editor of Italian Americana and coeditor of American Woman, Italian Style: Italian-Americana’s Best Writings on Women “What comes more naturally to the elderly but to reminisce? Riccio helps us eavesdrop on the first-person oral narratives of some of our earliest immigrants. We are grateful to him.” — Luisa Del Giudice, editor of Oral History, Oral Culture, and Italian Americans “I have long awaited a book like this: a history of Italian American women, in which they themselves are the narrators of their own lives. We hear from women without formal education; women who were workers, migrants, and mothers; women whose stories were often not valued enough to enter into the historical record, much less the archives. This beautifully conceived history is both a testament and a tribute to all working-class and im/migrant families and communities.” — Jennifer Guglielmo, author of Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880–1945

Download or read book Consuming Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century written by Tamara S. Wagner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consuming Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century aims to bring together detailed analyses of the cultural myths, or fictions, of consumption that have shaped discourses on consumer practices from the eighteenth century onwards. Individual essays provide an excitingly diverse range of perspectives, including musicology, philosophy, history, and art history, cultural and postcolonial studies as well as the study of literature in English, French, and German. The broad scope of this collection will engage audiences both inside and outside academia interested in the politics of food and consumption in eighteenth and nineteenth century culture.

Download or read book Gender and Technology written by Nina Lerman and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-10-15 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: McGaw; Joy Parr, Simon Fraser University.

Download or read book With Amusement for All written by LeRoy Ashby and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2006-05-12 with total page 713 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Amusement for All contextualizes what Americans have done for fun since 1830, showing the reciprocal nature of the relationships among social, political, economic, and cultural forces and the ways in which the entertainment world has reflected, changed, or reinforced the values of American society.

Download or read book American Exceptionalism American Anxiety written by Jonathan A. Glickstein and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What, then, was the supposed role of poverty, the fear of poverty, and other negative work incentives in the era of early industrial capitalism and escalating sectional conflict over slavery? American Exceptionalism, American Anxiety examines a wide spectrum of antebellum American thought on these and related issues, including slavery and cheap immigrant and female sweated labor."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book The Kid of Coney Island written by Woody Register and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A portrait of the pioneering entrepreneur who designed and built Luna Park - which in 1903 transformed Coney Island into a respectable venue for middle-class recreation - and created the Hippodrome, the world's largest theater when it opened in 1905, filling it with lavish spectacles at affordable ticket prices. The author also explores the development of the idea of adult amusements in America during Thompson's day, and ours.

Download or read book From Traveling Show to Vaudeville written by Robert M. Lewis and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-10 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Before phonographs and moving pictures, live performances dominated American popular entertainment. Carnivals, circuses, dioramas, magicians, mechanical marvels, musicians, and theatrical troupes—all visited rural fairgrounds, small-town opera houses, and big-city palaces around the country, giving millions of people an escape from their everyday lives for a dime or a quarter. In From Traveling Show to Vaudeville, Robert M. Lewis has assembled a remarkable collection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century primary sources that document America's age of theatrical spectacle. In eight parts, Lewis explores, in turn, dime museums, minstrelsy, circuses, melodramas, burlesque shows, Wild West shows, amusement parks, and vaudeville. Included in this compendium are biographies, programs, ephemera produced by theatrical entrepreneurs to lure audiences to their shows, photographs, scripts, and song lyrics as well as newspaper accounts, reviews, and interviews with such figures as P. T. Barnum and Buffalo Bill Cody. Lewis also gives us reminiscences about and reactions to various shows by members of audiences, including such prominent writers as Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Carl Sandburg, Walt Whitman, Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens, O. Henry, and Maxim Gorky. Each section also includes a concise introduction that places the genre of spectacle into its historical and cultural context and suggests major interpretive themes. The book closes with a bibliographic essay that identifies relevant scholarly works. Many of the pieces collected here have not been published since their first appearance, making From Traveling Show to Vaudeville an indispensable resource for historians of popular culture, theater, and nineteenth-century American society.

Download or read book Boys and their Toys written by Roger Horowitz and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-18 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Negotiating the divide between "respectable manhood" and "rough manhood" this book explores masculinity at work and at play through provocative essays on labor unions, railroads, vocational training programs, and NASCAR racing.

Download or read book Temper Democratic written by Humphrey McQueen and published by Wakefield Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Temper Democratic is an irreverent reflection on the idea of a classless Australia - its achievements, its limitations and its opponents. Humphrey McQueen explains why no news is best, scorns a national flag, turns the logic of multiculturalism against ethnic chauvinists and advances a wicked redemption of political correctness.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism written by Joel Myerson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-16 with total page 953 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Oxford Handbook of Transcendentalism offers an ecclectic, comprehensive interdisciplinary approach to the immense cultural impact of the movement that encompassed literature, art, architecture, science, and politics.

Download or read book American Theatre written by Theresa Saxon and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues for the recognition of American theatre history as long, rich, diverse and critically compelling.Embracing all epochs of theatre history, from pre-colonial Native American performance rituals and the endeavours of early colonisers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to the end of the twentieth century, Theresa Saxon situates American theatre as a lively, dynamic and diverse arena. She considers the implications of political manoeuvrings, economics - state-funding and commercial enterprises - race and gender, as well as material factors such as technology, riot and fire, as major forces in determining the structure of America's playhouses and productions. She goes on to investigate critical understandings of the term 'theatre,' and assesses ways in which the various values of commerce, entertainment, education and dramatic production have informed the definition of theatre throughout America's history.

Download or read book Between Anthropology and Literature written by Rose De Angelis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-08-27 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection addresses the ways in which the language of social science fuses with that of the literary imagination. The essays fit excellently with the current interest in interdisciplinary studies.