Critical Thinking and Popular Culture

Critical Thinking and Popular Culture PDF Author: Peter Elias Sotiriou
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780534235925
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description


Everything Bad is Good for You

Everything Bad is Good for You PDF Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101158018
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
From the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and Farsighted Forget everything you’ve ever read about the age of dumbed-down, instant-gratification culture. In this provocative, unfailingly intelligent, thoroughly researched, and surprisingly convincing big idea book, Steven Johnson draws from fields as diverse as neuroscience, economics, and media theory to argue that the pop culture we soak in every day—from Lord of the Rings to Grand Theft Auto to The Simpsons—has been growing more sophisticated with each passing year, and, far from rotting our brains, is actually posing new cognitive challenges that are actually making our minds measurably sharper. After reading Everything Bad is Good for You, you will never regard the glow of the video game or television screen the same way again. With a new afterword by the author.

Thinking Popular Culture

Thinking Popular Culture PDF Author: Tara Brabazon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351879499
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
This book is about war and popular culture, and war in popular culture. Tara Brabazon summons, probes, questions and reclaims popular culture, challenging the assumptions of war, whiteness, Christianity, modernity and progress that have dominated our lives since September 11. Addressing modes of thinking, design, music and visual media, Thinking Popular Culture offers a journey through courageous, interventionist and thoughtful ideas, performers and cultures. It welcomes those who ask difficult questions of those in power. Addressing the lack of imagination and dissent that characterizes this new century, it is essential reading for any scholar of cultural studies and popular culture, media and journalism, creative writing and terrorism studies.

Popcultured

Popcultured PDF Author: Steve Turner
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
ISBN: 0830895485
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Drawing on his storied career as a pop-culture wallflower, Steve Turner provides an all-access pass to the pervasive cultures of style, media and celebrity. Passing on his uniquely Christian way of viewing these cultures, Turner opens our eyes to a world of ideas lying just beneath the hype.

Pop Culture for Beginners

Pop Culture for Beginners PDF Author: Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
Publisher: Broadview Press
ISBN: 1770488111
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Pop Culture for Beginners promotes reflective engagement with the world around us and provides a set of tools for thinking critically about how meaning is created, reinforced, and circulated. Privileging a semiotic approach, the book’s first part, “The Pop Culture Toolbox,” outlines the development of pop culture studies; explains the semiotic framework; introduces students to a variety of critical lenses including Marxism, feminism, postcolonialism, and Critical Race Theory; and then offers an overview of several pop culture “pivot points” including authenticity, convergence culture, intersectionality, intertextuality, and subculture. The book’s second part provides a series of units, prepared in consultation with subject area experts, built around topics central to popular culture studies: television and film, music, comics, gaming, social media, and fandom. Each chapter includes “Your Turn” activities and discussion questions, as well as possible assignments and suggestions for further reading. The unit chapters in part two also include enabling questions as beginning points for thinking critically and sample readings demonstrating relevant scholarly approaches to popular culture; important vocabulary terms throughout are included in a substantive glossary at the end.

Basketball and Philosophy

Basketball and Philosophy PDF Author: Jerry Walls
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813172217
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
What can the film Hoosiers teach us about the meaning of life? How can ancient Eastern wisdom traditions, such as Taoism and Zen Buddhism, improve our jump-shots? What can the “Zen Master” (Phil Jackson) and the “Big Aristotle” (Shaquille O’Neal) teach us about sustained excellence and success? Is women’s basketball “better” basketball? How, ethically, should one deal with a strategic cheater in pickup basketball? With NBA and NCAA team rosters constantly changing, what does it mean to play for the “same team”? What can coaching legends Dean Smith, Rick Pitino, Pat Summitt, and Mike Krzyzewski teach us about character, achievement, and competition? What makes basketball such a beautiful game to watch and play? Basketball is now the most popular team sport in the United States; each year, more than 50 million Americans attend college and pro basketball games. When Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, first nailed two peach baskets at the opposite ends of a Springfield, Massachusetts, gym in 1891, he had little idea of how thoroughly the game would shape American—and international—culture. Hoops superstars such as Michael Jordan, LeBron James, and Yao Ming are now instantly recognized celebrities all across the planet. So what can a group of philosophers add to the understanding of basketball? It is a relatively simple game, but as Kant and Dennis Rodman liked to say, appearances can be deceiving. Coach Phil Jackson actively uses philosophy to improve player performance and to motivate and inspire his team and his fellow coaches, both on and off the court. Jackson has integrated philosophy into his coaching and his personal life so thoroughly that it is often difficult to distinguish his role as a basketball coach from his role as a philosophical guide and mentor to his players. In Basketball and Philosophy, a Dream Team of twenty-six basketball fans, most of whom also happen to be philosophers, proves that basketball is the thinking person’s sport. They look at what happens when the Tao meets the hardwood as they explore the teamwork, patience, selflessness, and balanced and harmonious action that make up the art of playing basketball.

Bob Dylan and Philosophy

Bob Dylan and Philosophy PDF Author: Carl J. Porter
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 081269760X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The legions of Bob Dylan fans know that Dylan is not just a great composer, writer, and performer, but a great thinker as well. In Bob Dylan and Philosophy, eighteen philosophers analyze Dylan’s ethical positions, political commitments, views on gender and sexuality, and his complicated and controversial attitudes toward religion. All phases of Dylan’s output are covered, from his early acoustic folk ballads and anthem-like protest songs to his controversial switch to electric guitar to his sometimes puzzling, often profound music of the 1970s and beyond. The book examines different aspects of Dylan’s creative thought through a philosophical lens, including personal identity, negative and positive freedom, enlightenment and postmodernism in his social criticism, and the morality of bootlegging. An engaging introduction to deep philosophical truths, the book provides Dylan fans with an opportunity to learn about philosophy while impressing fans of philosophy with the deeper implications of his intellectual achievements.

Monty Python and Philosophy

Monty Python and Philosophy PDF Author: Gary L. Hardcastle
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459601033
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
Humour.

The Spaces and Places of Canadian Popular Culture

The Spaces and Places of Canadian Popular Culture PDF Author: Victoria Kannen
Publisher: Canadian Scholars’ Press
ISBN: 1773381423
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
An exclusively Canadian textbook, this collection investigates the relationships between identity, geography, and popular culture that are produced and consumed in this sprawling country. Expanding beyond the clichés of friendliness and snow, this text provides a fresh perspective on what it means to be Canadian, both nationally and transnationally. Scholars look at historical subjects like Québécois identity and Indigenous self-representation and explore issues in contemporary media, including music, film, television, comic books, video games, and social media. From Drake to the Tragically Hip, Trailer Park Boys to The Amazing Race Canada, and poutine to maple syrup, mainstream icons and trends are studied in the interdisciplinary context of race, gender, sexuality, politics, and patriotism. Contributing to the location of Canadian popular culture, this unique resource will engage students and scholars of communication studies, cultural studies, and Canadian studies. FEATURES - Includes key concepts and theories and a glossary - Engages students with relatable historical and contemporary examples of Canadiana through a breadth of media, including television shows, websites, journals, celebrities, newspapers, literature, comic books, video games, music, and films - Ensures equal representation of a national and transnational Canada, which includes examples of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, with particular attention to geographical intricacies that contain all provinces and territories

An Introduction to Popular Culture in the US

An Introduction to Popular Culture in the US PDF Author: Jenn Brandt
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501320580
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
The first introductory textbook to situate popular culture studies in the United States as an academic discipline with its own history and approach to examining American culture, its rituals, beliefs, and the objects that shape its existence.