From Homicide to Slavery : Studies in American Culture

From Homicide to Slavery : Studies in American Culture PDF Author: David Brion Davis Sterling Professor of History Yale University
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198021127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
For more than twenty years David Brion Davis has been recognized as a leading authority on the moral and ideological responses to slavery in the Western world. From Homicide to Slavery, Davis's first book of collected essays, brings together selections reflecting his wide-ranging interests in colonial history, Afro-American history, the social sciences, and American literature. The essays are interconnected by Davis's central concern with violence, irrationality, and the definition of moral limits during a period when Americans believed they were breaking free from historical constraints and acquiring new powers of self-perfection. Topics range from a socially revealing murder trial in 1843 to debates over capital punishment, movements of counter-subverison, the iconography of race, the cowboy as an American hero, the portrayal of violence in American literature, the historiography of slavery, and the British and American antislavery movements.

American Cultural Studies

American Cultural Studies PDF Author: Neil C. Campbell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134796927
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Drawing on literature, art, film theatre, music and much more, American Cultural Studies is an interdisciplinary introduction to American culture for those taking American Studies. This textbook: * introduces the full range and variety of American culture including issues of race, gender and youth * provides a truly interdisciplinary methodology * suggests and discusses a variety of approaches to study * highlights American distinctiveness * draws on literature, art, film, theatre, architecture, music and more * challenges orthodox paradigms of American Studies. This is a fast-expanding subject area, and Campbell and Kean's book will certainly be a staple part of any cultural studies student's reading diet.

Material Culture Studies in America

Material Culture Studies in America PDF Author: Thomas J. Schlereth
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 9780761991601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
The country's leading authority on use of artifactual evidence in historical research collects twenty-five classic essays and gives his overview of the field of material culture.

Keywords for American Cultural Studies

Keywords for American Cultural Studies PDF Author: Bruce Burgett
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814799477
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
A collection of sixty-four essays in which scholars from various fields examine terms and concepts used in cultural and American studies.

The Myths That Made America

The Myths That Made America PDF Author: Heike Paul
Publisher: transcript Verlag
ISBN: 3839414857
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 451

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Book Description
This essential introduction to American studies examines the core foundational myths upon which the nation is based and which still determine discussions of US-American identities today. These myths include the myth of »discovery,« the Pocahontas myth, the myth of the Promised Land, the myth of the Founding Fathers, the melting pot myth, the myth of the West, and the myth of the self-made man. The chapters provide extended analyses of each of these myths, using examples from popular culture, literature, memorial culture, school books, and every-day life. Including visual material as well as study questions, this book will be of interest to any student of American studies and will foster an understanding of the United States of America as an imagined community by analyzing the foundational role of myths in the process of nation building.

Hollywood and the Rise of Physical Culture

Hollywood and the Rise of Physical Culture PDF Author: Heather Addison
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415946766
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Topics include: Clara Bow, Rudolph Valentino, Hollywood in the 1920s.

We Average Unbeautiful Watchers

We Average Unbeautiful Watchers PDF Author: Noah Cohan
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496216172
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
Sports fandom--often more than religious, political, or regional affiliation--determines how millions of Americans define themselves. In We Average Unbeautiful Watchers, Noah Cohan examines contemporary sports culture to show how mass-mediated athletics are in fact richly textured narrative entertainments rather than merely competitive displays. While it may seem that sports narratives are "written" by athletes and journalists, Cohan demonstrates that fans are not passive consumers but rather function as readers and writers who appropriate those narratives and generate their own stories in building their sense of identity. Critically reading stories of sports fans' self-definition across genres, from the novel and the memoir to the film and the blog post, We Average Unbeautiful Watchers recovers sports games as sites where fan-authors theorize interpretation, historicity, and narrative itself. Fan stories demonstrate how unscripted sporting entertainments function as identity-building narratives--which, in turn, enhances our understanding of the way we incorporate a broad range of texts into our own life stories. Building on the work of sports historians, theorists of fan behavior, and critics of American literature, Cohan shows that humanistic methods are urgently needed for developing nuanced critical conversations about athletics. Sports take shape as stories, and it is scholars in the humanities who can best identify how they do so--and why that matters for American culture more broadly.

Perspectives on American Book History

Perspectives on American Book History PDF Author: Scott E. Casper
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
CD-ROM contains: Digital image archive of books, magazines, manuscripts, technologies, and readers to accompany text.

American Studies in a Moment of Danger

American Studies in a Moment of Danger PDF Author: George Lipsitz
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 9780816639496
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

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Book Description
The America that seems to be disappearing before our very eyes is, George Lipsitz argues, actually the cumulative creation of yesterday's struggles over identity, culture, and power. At a critical moment, this book offers a richly textured historical perspective on where our notions of national knowledge have come from and where they may lead. Showing how American studies has been shaped by the social movements of the 1930s, 1960s, and 1980s, Lipsitz identifies the ways in which the globalization of commerce and culture are producing radically new understandings of politics, performance, consumption, knowledge, and nostalgia. Book jacket.

History Comes Alive

History Comes Alive PDF Author: M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469633876
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
During the 1976 Bicentennial celebration, millions of Americans engaged with the past in brand-new ways. They became absorbed by historical miniseries like Roots, visited museums with new exhibits that immersed them in the past, propelled works of historical fiction onto the bestseller list, and participated in living history events across the nation. While many of these activities were sparked by the Bicentennial, M. J. Rymsza-Pawlowska shows that, in fact, they were symptomatic of a fundamental shift in Americans' relationship to history during the 1960s and 1970s. For the majority of the twentieth century, Americans thought of the past as foundational to, but separate from, the present, and they learned and thought about history in informational terms. But Rymsza-Pawlowska argues that the popular culture of the 1970s reflected an emerging desire to engage and enact the past on a more emotional level: to consider the feelings and motivations of historic individuals and, most importantly, to use this in reevaluating both the past and the present. This thought-provoking book charts the era's shifting feeling for history, and explores how it serves as a foundation for the experience and practice of history making today.

Culture in the American Southwest

Culture in the American Southwest PDF Author: Keith L. Bryant
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 1623492084
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 581

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Book Description
If the Southwest is known for its distinctive regional culture, it is not only the indigenous influences that make it so. As Anglo Americans moved into the territories of the greater Southwest, they brought with them a desire to reestablish the highest culture of their former homes: opera, painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature. But their inherited culture was altered, challenged, and reshaped by Native American and Hispanic peoples, and a new, vibrant cultural life resulted. From Houston to Los Angeles, from Tulsa to Tucson, Keith L. Bryant traces the development of "high culture" in the Southwest. Humans create culture, but in the Southwest, Bryant argues, the land itself has also influenced that creation. "Incredible light, natural grandeur, . . . and a geography at once beautiful and yet brutal molded societies that sprang from unique cultural sources." The peoples of the American Southwest share a regional consciousness—an experience of place—that has helped to create a unified, but not homogenized, Southwestern culture. Bryant also examines a paradox of Southwestern cultural life. Southwesterners take pride in their cultural distinctiveness, yet they struggled to win recognition for their achievements in "high culture." A dynamic tension between those seeking to re-create a Western European culture and those desiring one based on regional themes and resources continues to stimulate creativity. Decade by decade and city by city, Bryant charts the growth of cultural institutions and patronage as he describes the contributions of artists and performers and of the elites who support them. Bryant focuses on the significant role women played as leaders in the formation of cultural institutions and as writers, artists, and musicians. The text is enhanced by more than fifty photographs depicting the interplay between the people and the land and the culture that has resulted.