Leopards in the Temple Studies in American Popular Culture

by Carter, Steven

• ISBN13: 9781573093255
• ISBN10: 1573093254
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-02-21
• Publisher: International Scholars Publications

Summary

Leopards in the Temple explores the ways in which exposure to electronic environments influences cultural interpretations of self and otherness in contemporary American life. Philosophers of technology such as Jacques Ellul, Martin Heidegger, Herbert Marcuse, Hans Jonas, and Hubert Dreyfus have taken various approaches to interpreting the consequences of technological revolutions. With the exception of Jonas and Heidegger, critiques of technology's influence at the ontological level are relatively rare. Addressing this issue, Steven Carter investigates the ways in which technology, media entertainment, and advertising are in the process of recycling metaphysical values in postmodern society. In this revised edition, he focuses specifically on marginality as a world wide literary phenomenon. Thought provoking and original, Leopards in the Temple represents a timely contribution to the study of technology, popular culture, and postmodern studies.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Preface	ix
Prologue: The Poetry of Night	xiii
The Horror and Splendor of ``Radiant Appearing'': Notes from the Shadow of Chernobyl	1	(10)
The Descent of John Henry's Hammer	11	(14)
Romancing the Apocalypse, or: Why We Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb	25	(14)
Charles is an Angel of Goodness	39	(14)
``The Beauty of Her Vault''	53	(14)
Avatars of the Turtles	67	(16)
Barbie and Jane vs. the Wooden Nutmegs of Connecticut	83	(16)
Paper or Plastic? You Decide	99	(8)
Expecting the Barbarians	107	(16)
Mythopoesis and the Marketplace	123	(10)
Leopards in the Temple	133	(22)
Selected Bibliography	155	(6)
Index	161