American Cultural Studies A Reader

by Hartley, John; Pearson, Roberta E.; Vieth, Eva

• ISBN13: 9780198742548
• ISBN10: 0198742541
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-08-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This provocative new collection shows how the burgeoning field of cultural studies has developed in the U.S. Introducing vital concepts, arguments, theories, and disciplinary debates, American Cultural Studies: A Reader is a panorama of great writing and powerful ideas. It illustrates a uniquely American response to questions of power and identity in the politics of culture. More than forty selections from key figures in "new journalism," cultural theory, the social sciences, humanities, and visual arts are gathered together in seven sections, each one introduced by helpful notes. A general introductory chapter explains the editorial selection and offers a new account of cultural studies and American studies in relation to American culture. The Epilogue suggests new ways--via the Internet--of doing cultural studies and of thinking about America.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	viii
Notes on Contributors	ix
Acknowledgements	xiv
Introduction ``Cultural Exceptionalism'': Freedom, Imperialism, Power, America	1	(18)
John Hartley
Part One The Intellectual Context
Section I. The New Journalism and its Legacy
Introduction	19	(3)
What If He Is Right?	22	(10)
Tom Wolfe
What's Happening to America?	32	(7)
Susan Sontag
Black Is Good	39	(5)
Stokely Carmichael
Indians Today, the Real and the Unreal	44	(9)
Vine Deloria, Jr.
Through the Cracks	53	(9)
Marge Piercy
Revisited: The Puerto Rican Problem	62	(7)
Hunter S. Thompson
Section II. European Cultural Theory and its Legacy
Introduction	67	(2)
The Sexual Solipsism of Sigmund Freud	69	(10)
Betty Friedan
The Gutenberg Galaxy	79	(17)
Marshall McLuhan
Notes on the American Clothing System	96	(10)
Marshall Sahlins
Travels in Hyperreality	106	(8)
Umberto Eco
Identity and Cultural Studies: Is That All There Is?	114	(14)
Lawrence Grossberg
Section III. American Social Science and Its Legacy
Introduction	125	(3)
The Return of the Humanities and Sociology	128	(2)
Elihu Katz
Mass Communication and Cultural Studies	130	(11)
James W. Carey
Mass Media Discourse: Message System Analysis as a Component of Cultural Indicators	141	(11)
George Gerbner
The Politics of Narrative Form: The Emergence of News Conventions in Print and Television	152	(10)
Michael Schudson
Television as a Cultural Forum	162	(17)
Horace Newcomb
Paul M. Hirsch
Section IV: History and Literature and Their Legacy
Introduction	177	(2)
Literature as a Weapon in the Colonization of the American Indian	179	(7)
Ward Churchill
Handling ``Crisis''. Great Books, Rap Music, and the End of Western Homogeneity (Reflections on the Humanities in America)	186	(12)
Houston A. Baker, Jr.
Writing History: Language, Class, and Gender	198	(10)
Carroll Smith-Rosenberg
The Doxa of Difference	208	(10)
Rita Felski
What's in a Name? Presidential Address to the American Studies Association	218	(15)
Janice Radway
Part Two Cultural Sites
Section V. Identities
Introduction	231	(2)
Tremble, Hetero Swine!	233	(9)
Cindy Patton
African-American Political Desire and the Seductions of Contemporary Cultural Politics	242	(9)
Herman Gray
Cities and Citizenship	251	(8)
James Holston
Arjun Appadurai
Plotting Women: Popular Narratives for Women in the United States and in Latin America	259	(10)
Jean Franco
The Transvestite Continuum: Liberace-Valentino-Elvis	269	(18)
Marjorie Garber
Section VI. Practices
Introduction	285	(2)
The Great Un-American Numbers Game	287	(15)
Andrew Ross
Land of a Thousand Dances: Youth, Minorities, and the Rise of Rock and Roll	302	(11)
George Lipsitz
Work(ing) Out	313	(12)
Susan Willis
AIDS, Homophobia, and Biomedical Discourse: An Epidemic of Signification	325	(15)
Paula A. Treichler
The Truth is a Murky Path	340	(13)
Toby Miller
Section VII. Media
Introduction	351	(2)
Popularity and the Politics of Information	353	(10)
John Fiske
From Theatre to Space Ship: Metaphors of Suburban Domesticity in Postwar America	363	(10)
Lynn Spigel
Eurocentrism, Polycentrism, and Multicultural Pedagogy: Film and the Quincentennial	373	(10)
Robert Stam
``Out of the Closet and into the Universe'': Queers and Star Trek	383	(19)
Henry Jenkins
CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere	402	(12)
Mark Poster
Materials for an Exploratory Theory of the Network Society	414	(13)
Manuel Castells
Epilogue: The Future is Present: American Cultural Studies on the Net	427	(10)
Eva Vieth
Index of Names	437