Download or read book Highbrow Lowbrow written by Lawrence W. LEVINE and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this unusually wide-ranging study, spanning more than a century and covering such diverse forms of expressive culture as Shakespeare, Central Park, symphonies, jazz, art museums, the Marx Brothers, opera, and vaudeville, a leading cultural historian demonstrates how variable and dynamic cultural boundaries have been and how fragile and recent the cultural categories we have learned to accept as natural and eternal are. For most of the nineteenth century, a wide variety of expressive forms—Shakespearean drama, opera, orchestral music, painting and sculpture, as well as the writings of such authors as Dickens and Longfellow—enjoyed both high cultural status and mass popularity. In the nineteenth century Americans (in addition to whatever specific ethnic, class, and regional cultures they were part of) shared a public culture less hierarchically organized, less fragmented into relatively rigid adjectival groupings than their descendants were to experience. By the twentieth century this cultural eclecticism and openness became increasingly rare. Cultural space was more sharply defined and less flexible than it had been. The theater, once a microcosm of America—housing both the entire spectrum of the population and the complete range of entertainment from tragedy to farce, juggling to ballet, opera to minstrelsy—now fragmented into discrete spaces catering to distinct audiences and separate genres of expressive culture. The same transition occurred in concert halls, opera houses, and museums. A growing chasm between “serious” and “popular,” between “high” and “low” culture came to dominate America’s expressive arts. “If there is a tragedy in this development,” Lawrence Levine comments, “it is not only that millions of Americans were now separated from exposure to such creators as Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Verdi, whom they had enjoyed in various formats for much of the nineteenth century, but also that the rigid cultural categories, once they were in place, made it so difficult for so long for so many to understand the value and importance of the popular art forms that were all around them. Too many of those who considered themselves educated and cultured lost for a significant period—and many have still not regained—their ability to discriminate independently, to sort things out for themselves and understand that simply because a form of expressive culture was widely accessible and highly popular it was not therefore necessarily devoid of any redeeming value or artistic merit.” In this innovative historical exploration, Levine not only traces the emergence of such familiar categories as highbrow and lowbrow at the turn of the century, but helps us to understand more clearly both the process of cultural change and the nature of culture in American society.
Download or read book Highbrow Lowbrow Brilliant Despicable written by The Editors of New York Magazine and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-11-07 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York City: a battered town left for dead, one that almost a million people abandoned and where those who remained had to live behind triple deadbolt locks. It was reinvigorated and became the capital of wealth and innovation, an engine of cultural vibrancy, a magnet for immigrants, and a city of endless possibility. Since its founding in 1968, New York Magazine has told the story of that city's constant morphing, week after week. This book draws from all that coverage to present an enormous, sweeping, idiosyncratic picture of a half-century at the center of the world. It constitutes an unparalleled history of that city's transformation, and of a New York City institution as well.
Download or read book When Highbrow Meets Lowbrow written by Peter Swirski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines nobrow, a cultural formation that intertwines art and entertainment into an identifiable creative force. In our eclectic and culturally turbocharged world, the binary of highbrow vs. lowbrow is incapable of doing justice to the complexity and artistry of cultural production. Until now, the historical power, aesthetic complexity, and social significance of nobrow “artertainment” have escaped analysis. This book rectifies this oversight. Smart, funny, and iconoclastic, it scrutinizes the many faces of nobrow, throwing surprising light on the hazards and rewards of traffic between high entertainment and genre art.
Download or read book Masscult and Midcult written by Dwight Macdonald and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2011-10-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Review Books Original An uncompromising contrarian, a passionate polemicist, a man of quick wit and wide learning, an anarchist, a pacifist, and a virtuoso of the slashing phrase, Dwight Macdonald was an indefatigable and indomitable critic of America’s susceptibility to well-meaning cultural fakery: all those estimable, eminent, prizewinning works of art that are said to be good and good for you and are not. He dubbed this phenomenon “Midcult” and he attacked it not only on aesthetic but on political grounds. Midcult rendered people complacent and compliant, secure in their common stupidity but neither happy nor free. This new selection of Macdonald’s finest essays, assembled by John Summers, the editor of The Baffler, reintroduces a remarkable American critic and writer. In the era of smart, sexy, and everything indie, Macdonald remains as pertinent and challenging as ever.
Download or read book Lolita in Peyton Place written by Ruth Pirsig Wood and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the differences in content, reader expectation, and social/moral/ethical functions of the three types of novels in America of the 1950s. It challenges the notion that highbrow novels (Lolita ) do important cultural work while popular novels contribute to personal and social decay, and examines how time periods influence the moral content of novels. The book separates popular fiction into lowbrow (Peyton Place ) and middlebrow (Man in the Grey Flannel Suit ) and explains that lowbrow (like highbrow) evolves from the folklore tradition and contains messages about how to be a good man or good woman and how to find a satisfying niche in the social order. Middlebrow, on the other hand, evolves from myth tradition and relates lessons on what personal adjustments need to be made to succeed in the economic order. Middlebrow novels most reflect the time and place of their writing because conditions for economic survival change more than conditions for social survival. Arguing that what most distinguishes highbrow from lowbrow is the audience, highbrow writers try to separate from the flock; lowbrow writers to include. This study differs from such well-known studies of popular fiction as John Cawelti's and Janice Radway's in looking beyond the surface features of plot, character, and theme. The book also challenges arguments that novels in which marriage is women's highest triumph and aggressive heroism men's reinforce limiting cultural paradigms.
Download or read book From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse written by John Cline and published by Scarecrow Press. This book was released on 2010-07-17 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays represents key contributions to 'transgression cinema:' overlooked, forgotten, or under-analyzed movies that walk the fine line between 'arthouse' and 'grindhouse' film.
Download or read book America s Coming of age written by Van Wyck Brooks and published by . This book was released on 1915 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book From Lowbrow to Nobrow written by Peter Swirski and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2005-10-24 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Swirski begins with a series of groundbreaking questions about the nature of popular fiction, vindicating it as an artform that expresses and reflects the aesthetic and social values of its readers. He follows his insightful introduction to the socio-aesthetics of genre literature with a synthesis of the century long debate on the merits of popular fiction and a study of genre informed by analytic aesthetics and game theory. Swirski then turns to three "nobrow" novels that have been largely ignored by critics. Examining the aesthetics of "artertainment" in Karel Capek's War with the Newts, Raymond Chandler's Playback, and Stanislaw Lem's Chain of Chance, crossover tours de force, From Lowbrow to Nobrow throws new light on the hazards and rewards of nobrow traffic between popular forms and highbrow aesthetics.
Download or read book Defender of the Faith written by Lawrence W. Levine and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Defender of the Faith offers a reinterpretation of William Jennings Bryan in his last years as an unchanging Progressive whose roots were deeply embedded in agrarian populism. It changes the standard picture of Bryan in his final years as that of a crusader for social and economic reform sadly transformed into a reactionary champion of anachronistic rural evangelism, cheap moralistic panaceas, and Florida real estate. He pleaded for for progressive labor laws, liberal taxes, government aid to farmers, public ownership of railroads, telegraphs, and telephones, federal development of water resources, minimum wages for labor, and other advanced causes.
Download or read book Transactions in a Foreign Currency written by Deborah Eisenberg and published by Picador. This book was released on 2020-06-02 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nobrow written by John Seabrook and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2001-02-06 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From John Seabrook, one of our most incisive and amusing cultural critics, comes Nobrow, a fascinatingly original look at the radical convergence of marketing and culture. In the old days, highbrow was elite and unique and lowbrow was commercial and mass-produced. Those distinctions have been eradicated by a new cultural landscape where “good” means popular, where artists show their work at K-Mart, Titantic becomes a bestselling classical album, and Roseanne Barr guest edits The New Yorker: in short, a culture of Nobrow. Combining social commentary, memoir, and profiles of the potentates and purveyors of pop culture–entertainment mogul David Geffen, MTV President Judy McGrath, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Nobrow high-priest George Lucas, and others–Seabrook offers an enthralling look at our breakneck society where culture is ruled by the unpredictable Buzz and where even aesthetic worth is measured by units shipped.
Download or read book I Am Charlotte Simmons written by Tom Wolfe and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2005-08-30 with total page 758 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At Dupont University, an innocent college freshman named Charlotte Simmons learns that her intellect alone will not help her survive.
Download or read book The Myth of Popular Culture written by Perry Meisel and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Myth of Popular Culture from Dante to Dylan is afascinating examination of the cultural traditions of the Americannovel, Hollywood, and British and American rock music which leadsus to redefine our concept of the division between "high" and "low"culture. A stimulating history of high and low culture from DanteAlighieri to Bob Dylan, providing a controversial defence ofpopular culture Seeks to rebut the durable belief that only high culture is‘dialectical’ and popular culture is not by turningTheodor Adorno’s theories on ‘pop’ againstthemselves Presents a critical analysis of three popular traditions: theAmerican novel, Hollywood, and British and American rock music Offers an original account of Bob Dylan as an example of howthe distinction between high and low culture is highlyproblematic A provocative book for any student, scholar or general reader,who is interested in popular culture
Download or read book I Like to Watch written by Emily Nussbaum and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The big picture : how Buffy the vampire slayer turned me into a TV critic -- The long con ("The Sopranos") -- The great divide : Norman Lear, Archie Bunker, and the rise of the bad fan -- Difficult women ("Sex and the city") -- Cool story, bro ("True detective," "Top of the lake" and "The fall") -- Last girl in Larchmont : the legacy of Joan Rivers -- Girls girls girls : "Girls," "Vanderpump rules," "House of cards and Scandal," "The Amy Schumer show," "Transparent" -- Confessions of the human shield -- How jokes won the election -- In praise of sex and violence : "Hannibal," "Law et order : SVU," "Jessica Jones," -- "The jinx," "The Americans" -- The price is right : what advertising does to TV -- In living color : Kenya Barris' -- Breaking the box : "Jane the virgin," "The comeback," "The good wife," "The newsroom," "Adventure time," "The leftovers," "High maintenance." -- Riot girl : Jenji Kohan's hot provocations -- A disappointed fan is still a fan ("Lost") -- Mr. big : how Ryan Murphy became the most powerful man in television.
Download or read book Lost Sound written by Jeff Porter and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-03-11 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Archibald MacLeish to David Sedaris, radio storytelling has long borrowed from the world of literature, yet the narrative radio work of well-known writers and others is a story that has not been told before. And when the literary aspects of specific programs such as The War of the Worlds or Sorry, Wrong Number were considered, scrutiny was superficial. In Lost Sound, Jeff Porter examines the vital interplay between acoustic techniques and modernist practices in the growth of radio. Concentrating on the 1930s through the 1970s, but also speaking to the rising popularity of today's narrative broadcasts such as This American Life, Radiolab, Serial, and The Organist, Porter's close readings of key radio programs show how writers adapted literary techniques to an acoustic medium with great effect. Addressing avant-garde sound poetry and experimental literature on the air, alongside industry policy and network economics, Porter identifies the ways radio challenged the conventional distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow cultural content to produce a dynamic popular culture.
Download or read book Burial Rites written by Hannah Kent and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2013-09-10 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution. Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tv=ti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes's death looms, the farmer's wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. Riveting and rich with lyricism, Burial Rites evokes a dramatic existence in a distant time and place, and asks the question, how can one woman hope to endure when her life depends upon the stories told by others?
Download or read book How to Talk About Books You Haven t Read written by Pierre Bayard and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-08-10 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this delightfully witty, provocative book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that not having read a book need not be an impediment to having an interesting conversation about it. (In fact, he says, in certain situations reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, he describes the varieties of "non-reading"-from books that you've never heard of to books that you've read and forgotten-and offers advice on how to turn a sticky social situation into an occasion for creative brilliance. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read-which became a favorite of readers everywhere in the hardcover edition-is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them.
