World is a Text, The: The Writing, Reading, and Thinking About Culture and Its Contexts

by Silverman, Jonathan; Rader, Dean

• ISBN13: 9780131931985
• ISBN10: 0131931989
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-01
• Publisher: Pearson College Div

Summary

The book teaches readers the usefulness of learning to actively "read" their surroundings. The new edition features a greatly expanded section on writing, editing, and making arguments.This cultural studies reader directly engages the process of writing about the "texts" one sees in everyday life. Its comprehensive and inclusive approach focuses on the relationship between reading traditional workssuch as short stories, and poemsand other less-traditional onessuch as movies, the Internet, race, ethnicity, and television.For anyone who enjoys provocative and engaging material, and is interested in developing an appreciation for diverse cultural literary works.

Table of Contents

African-American Issues
American Sonnet	p. 74
How Soaps Are Integrating America: Color TV	p. 121
"Black Bart" Simpson: Appropriation and Revitalization in Commodity Culture	p. 155
Shopping in a Mall While Black: A Coach's Story	p. 201
New Urbanism Needs to Keep Racial Issues in Mind	p. 228
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?	p. 266
The Sports Taboo	p. 269
Race Is a Four-Letter Word	p. 278
Mock Feminism: Waiting to Exhale	p. 319
An African-American Christian's View of Passion	p. 352
Welcome to America's Finest Tourist Plantation	p. 527
Klanswoman	p. 528
A Boondocks Cartoon	p. 532
Advertising and People of Color	p. 554
Where Do You Want to Go Today? Cybernetic Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality	p. 707
Arab-American Issues
Blood	p. 71
Censoring Myself	p. 282
Where Do You Want to Go Today? Cybernetic Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality	p. 707
Asian-American Issues
The Visual Character of Chinatowns	p. 210
Mother Tongue	p. 261
America, Cowboys, the West, & Race (Interchapter)	p. 362
No Name Woman	p. 448
Advertising and People of Color	p. 554
Where Do You Want to Go Today? Cybernetic Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality	p. 707
Student Essay: Mail Order Brides: The Content of Internet Courtship	p. 722
Argumentative/Persuasive Essays
TV Can Be a Good Parent	p. 112
Student Essay: Society's Need for a Queer Solution: The Media's Reinforcement of Homophobia Through Traditional Gender Roles	p. 142
Reality TV Bites-or Does It?: The New Soap Opera or the End of Civilization: A Point-Counterpoint	p. 169
How Suburban Design Is Failing Teen-Agers	p. 217
New Urbanism Needs to Keep Racial Issues in Mind	p. 228
In Living Color: Race and American Culture	p. 251
Let's Spread the Fun Around: The Issue of Sports Team Names and Mascots	p. 289
Class and Virtue	p. 316
Mock Feminism: Waiting to Exhale	p. 319
Student Essay: Star Wars and America	p. 344
Nailed	p. 349
An African-American Christian's View of Passion	p. 352
Gender Role Behavior and Attitudes	p. 406
Why Chicks Dig Vampires: Sex, Blood and Buffy	p. 415
America's Cinderella	p. 441
Andy Warhol: The Most Controversial Artist of the Twentieth Century?	p. 489
Is the NAMES Quilt Art?	p. 499
Weasel Words	p. 569
Student Essay: Sister Act (Sis-ter Akt) N. 1. A Destructive Form of Writing	p. 580
Off Limits: Should Students Be Allowed to Hook Up with Professors?	p. 619
Infuriating by Design: Everyday Things Need Not Wreak Havoc on Our Lives	p. 690
Kill-for-Kicks Video Games Desensitizing Our Children	p. 701
Student Essay: Hungry for a Scapegoat: A Rebuttal to John Leo's "Kill-for-Kicks Video Games Desensitizing Our Children"	p. 703
Social and Economic Class
Capitalist Poem #5	p. 79
Life According to TV	p. 115
How Suburban Design Is Failing Teen-Agers	p. 217
A White Migration North from Miami	p. 220
A Remedy for the Rootlessness of Modern Suburban Life?	p. 225
New Urbanism Needs to Keep Racial Issues in Mind	p. 228
Growing Up, Growing Apart	p. 239
Class and Virtue	p. 316
The America the Media Don't Want You to See	p. 561
"Coal Miner's Daughter" by Loretta Lynn	p. 661
Comparison/Contrast
How Soaps Are Integrating America: Color TV	p. 121
Student Essay: Society's Need for a Queer Solution: The Media's Reinforcement of Homophobia Through Traditional Gender Roles	p. 142
Spatial Segregation and Gender Stratification in the Workplace	p. 196
The Sports Taboo	p. 269
Mock Feminism: Waiting to Exhale	p. 319
Deciphering I, Robot: Random Thoughts from an Evolving Film Reviewer	p. 338
Marked Women, Unmarked Men	p. 402
Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine	p. 432
Definitional Essays
Andy Warhol: The Most Controversial Artist of the Twentieth Century?	p. 489
Is the NAMES Quilt Art?	p. 499
It Isn't Pretty...But Is It Art?	p. 519
Mock Feminism: Waiting to Exhale	p. 319
TV Can Be a Good Parent	p. 112
Weasel Words	p. 569
Class and Virtue	p. 316
The Visual Character of Chinatowns	p. 210
Qallunaat 101: Inuits Study White Folks in This New Academic Field	p. 276
Student Essay: Can You Handle the Commitment?: Three Types of College Relationships	p. 613
Boy Friend: Between Those Two Words, A Guy Can Get Crushed	p. 615
Case Study: Harmful Hug?	p. 621
Fun!
Goodtime Jesus	p. 73
My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet 130)	p. 73
Bear in There	p. 75
The Unknown	p. 78
Capitalist Poem #5	p. 79
Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes	p. 82
"Not That There's Anything Wrong with That": Reading the Queer in Seinfeld	p. 124
Caught Looking: Problems with Taking Pictures of People Taking Pictures at an Exhibition	p. 206
Qallunaat 101: Inuits Study White Folks in This New Academic Field	p. 276
Images & Non-Traditional Texts
The Visual Character of Chinatowns	p. 210
True Tales of Amerikkkan History Part II: The True Thanksgiving	p. 265
A Suite of Cartoons
"Which One Is the Mascot?"	p. 303
"But I'm Honoring You, Dude!"	p. 304
"Pow Wow"	p. 305
America, Cowboys, The West, & Race	p. 362
Two Images of Gender	p. 364
The Semiotics of Architecture	p. 366
Flags	p. 367
Laundry	p. 368
Neighborhoods	p. 370
Cars	p. 371
Signs	p. 372
Two Photos by Diane Arbus	p. 374
Private Symbol/Public Space: The Virgin of Guadalupe	p. 376
Two Murals by Rigo	p. 377
Diners	p. 378
Postcards from Texas	p. 379
The American Signs on Route 66 Suite	p. 382
Sequential Art: "Closure" and "Art"	p. 505
Piss Christ	p. 526
What Is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag?	p. 527
Welcome to America's Finest Tourist Plantation	p. 527
Klanswoman	p. 528
Kissing Doesn't Kill	p. 529
CityBank Posters	p. 529
Our Lady	p. 531
Yo Mama's Last Supper	p. 532
A Boondocks Cartoon	p. 532
International/Global Readings
Ode to My Socks	p. 69
My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet 130)	p. 73
The Colonel	p. 76
Being a Man	p. 411
Ways of Seeing	p. 465
Where Do You Want to Go Today? Cybernetic Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality	p. 707
Student Essay: Mail-Order Brides: The Content of Internet Courtship	p. 722
Latino/Latina Issues
The Colonel	p. 76
How Soaps Are Integrating America: Color TV	p. 121
A White Migration North from Miami	p. 220
Race Is a Four-Letter Word	p. 278
Flags	p. 367
Private Symbol/Public Space: The Virgin of Guadalupe	p. 376
You Would Have Me White	p. 413
Our Lady	p. 531
Yo Mama's Last Supper	p. 532
Advertising and People of Color	p. 554
Literature (Fiction, Literary Non-Fiction, and Poetry)
Ode to My Socks	p. 69
Goodtime Jesus	p. 73
My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnet 130)	p. 73
American Sonnet	p. 74
Bear in There	p. 75
The Colonel	p. 76
Harlem	p. 78
The Unknown	p. 78
Capitalist Poem #5	p. 79
Because I Could Not Stop for Death-Poem 712	p. 80
Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes	p. 82
How to Read a Poem	p. 84
The Resistance to Poetry	p. 90
Mother Tongue	p. 261
Two Poems by American Indians: Louise Erdrich, "Dear John Wayne" & Sherman Alexie, "My Heroes Have Never Been Cowboys"	p. 332
You Would Have Me White	p. 413
No Name Woman	p. 448
Happy Endings	p. 596
You Can Have It	p. 599
Native American Issues
True Tales of Amerikkkan History Part II: The True Thanksgiving	p. 265
Qallunaat 101: Inuits Study White Folks in This New Academic Field	p. 276
Let's Spread the Fun Around: The Issue of Sports Team Names and Mascots	p. 289
"Black Bart" Simpson: Appropriation and Revitalization in Commodity Culture	p. 155
Spatial Segregation and Gender Stratification in the Workplace	p. 196
The Visual Character of Chinatowns	p. 210
Student Essay: Reading the Nautical Star	p. 214
In Living Color: Race and American Culture	p. 251
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?	p. 266
Holy Homosexuality Batman!: Camp and Corporate Capitalism in Batman Forever	p. 326
Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes	p. 406
Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine	p. 432
America's Cinderella	p. 441
Ways of Seeing	p. 465
Advertising and People of Color	p. 554
Musical Cheese: The Appropriation of Seventies Music in Nineties Movies	p. 634
Student Essay: Is Tupac Really Dead?	p. 645
"Coal Miner's Daughter" by Loretta Lynn	p. 661
Student Essay: "Smells Like Teen Spirit"	p. 657
Cop Out? The Media, "Cop Killer," and the Deracialization of Black Rage (Constructing [Mis]Representations)	p. 669
Infuriating by Design: Everyday Things Need Not Wreak Havoc on Our Lives	p. 690
Where Do You Want to Go Today? Cybernetic Tourism, the Internet, and Transnationality	p. 707
Student Essay: Mail-Order Brides: The Content of Internet Courtship	p. 722
Young Adults/Teenagers/Children
Bear in There	p. 75
TV Can Be a Good Parent	p. 112
Shopping in a Mall While Black: A Coach's Story	p. 201
How Suburban Design Is Failing Teen-Agers	p. 217
Growing Up, Growing Apart	p. 239
True Tales of Amerikkkan History Part II: The True Thanksgiving	p. 265
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?	p. 266
Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine	p. 432
The Coolhunt	p. 543
Student Essay: Can You Handle the Commitment?: Three Types of College Relationships	p. 613
Boy Friend: Between Those Two Words, A Guy Can Get Crushed	p. 615
Off Limits: Should Students Be Allowed to Hook Up with Professors?	p. 619
Case Study: Harmful Hug?	p. 621
When Is It OK to Invite a Student to Dinner?	p. 624
Student Essay: Is Tupac Really Dead?	p. 645
Student Essay: "Smells Like Teen Spirit"	p. 657
Kill-for-Kicks Video Games Desensitizing Our Children	p. 701
Hungry for a Scapegoat: A Rebuttal to John Leo's "Kill-for-Kicks Video Games Desensitizing Our Children"	p. 703
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