Theories of American Culture, Theories of American Studies PDF Download

Author: Winfried Fluck
Publisher: Gunter Narr Verlag
ISBN: 9783823341734
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Author: Antje Dallmann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317227743
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Approaches to American Cultural Studies provides an accessible yet comprehensive overview of the diverse range of subjects encompassed within American Studies, familiarising students with the history and shape of American Studies as an academic subject as well as its key theories, methods, and concepts. Written and edited by an international team of authors based primarily in Europe, the book is divided into four thematically-organised sections. The first part delineates the evolution of American Studies over the course of the twentieth century, the second elaborates on how American Studies as a field is positioned within the wider humanities, and the third inspects and deconstructs popular tropes such as myths of the West, the self-made man, Manifest Destiny, and representations of the President of the United States. The fourth part introduces theories of society such as structuralism and deconstruction, queer and transgender theories, border and hemispheric studies, and critical race theory that are particularly influential within American Studies. This book is supplemented by a companion website offering further material for study (www.routledge.com/cw/dallmann). Specifically designed for use on courses across Europe, it is a clear and engaging introductory text for students of American culture.

Author: Anne Norton
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226595122
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Norton examines the enactment of liberal ideas in popular culture; in the possessions of ordinary people and the habits of everyday life. She sees liberalism as the common sense of the American people: a set of conventions unconsciously adhered to, a set of principles silently taken for granted. The author ranges over a wide expanse of popular activities (e.g. wrestling, roller derby, lotteries, shopping sprees, and dining out), as well as conventional political topics (e.g., the Constitution, presidency, news media, and centrality of law). Yet the argument is pointed and probling, never shallow or superficial. Fred and Wilma Flintstone are as vital to the republic as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. "In discussions that range from the Constitution and the presidency to money and shopping, voting, lotteries, and survey research, Norton discerns and imaginatively invents possibilities that exceed recognized actualities and already approved opportunities."—Richard E. Flathman, American Political Science Review "[S]timulating and stylish exploration of political theory, language, culture, and shopping at the mall . . . popular culture at its best, informed by history and theory, serious in purpose, yet witty and modest in tone."—Bernard Mergen, American Studies International

Author: Klaus Benesch
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9042018763
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 589

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America's sense of space has always been tied to what Hayden White called the narrativization of real events. If the awe-inspiring manifestations of nature in America (Niagara Falls, Virginia's Natural Bridge, the Grand Canyon, etc.) were often used as a foil for projecting utopian visions and idealizations of the nation's exceptional place among the nations of the world, the rapid technological progress and its concomitant appropriation of natural spaces served equally well, as David Nye argues, to promote the dominant cultural idiom of exploration and conquest. From the beginning, American attitudes towards space were thus utterly contradictory if not paradoxical; a paradox that scholars tried to capture in such hybrid concepts as the middle landscape (Leo Marx), an engineered New Earth (Cecelia Tichi), or the technological sublime (David Nye). Not only was America's concept of space paradoxical, it has always also been a contested terrain, a site of continuous social and cultural conflict. Many foundational issues in American history (the dislocation of Native and African Americans, the geo-political implications of nation-building, immigration and transmigration, the increasing division and clustering of contemporary American society, etc.) involve differing ideals and notions of space. Quite literally, space and its various ideological appropriations formed the arena where America's search for identity (national, political, cultural) has been staged. If American democracy, as Frederick Jackson Turner claimed, is born of free land, then its history may well be defined as the history of the fierce struggles to gain and maintain power over both the geographical, social and political spaces of America and its concomitant narratives. The number and range of topics, interests, and critical approaches of the essays gathered here open up exciting new avenues of inquiry into the tangled, contentious relations of space in America. Topics include: Theories of Space - Landscape / Nature - Technoscape / Architecture / Urban Utopia - Literature - Performance / Film / Visual Arts.

Author: Martin Middeke
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3476004066
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : de
Pages : 539

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Book Description
Das ganze Studium der Anglistik und Amerikanistik in einem Band. Ob englische und amerikanische Literatur, Sprachwissenschaft, Literatur- und Kulturtheorie, Fachdidaktik oder die Analyse von Filmen und kulturellen Phänomenen führende Fachvertreter geben in englischer Sprache einen ausführlichen Überblick über alle relevanten Teildisziplinen. BA- und MA-Studierende finden hier die wichtigsten Grundlagen und Wissensgebiete auf einen Blick. Durch die übersichtliche Darstellung und das Sachregister optimal für das systematische Lernen und zum Nachschlagen geeignet.

Author: Peter Knight
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1576078132
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 944

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The first comprehensive history of conspiracies and conspiracy theories in the United States. Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia is the first comprehensive, research-based, scholarly study of the pervasiveness of our deeply ingrained culture of conspiracy. From the Puritan witch trials to the Masons, from the Red Scare to Watergate, Whitewater, and the War on Terror, this encyclopedia covers conspiracy theories across the breadth of U.S. history, examining the individuals, organizations, and ideas behind them. Its over 300 alphabetical entries cover both the documented records of actual conspiracies and the cultural and political significance of specific conspiracy speculations. Neither promoting nor dismissing any theory, the entries move beyond the usual biased rhetoric to provide a clear-sighted, dispassionate look at each conspiracy (real or imagined). Readers will come to understand the political and social contexts in which these theories arose, the mindsets and motivations of the people promoting them, the real impact of society's reactions to conspiracy fears, warranted or not, and the verdict (when verifiable) that history has passed on each case.

Author: Clare Birchall
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 9780820329598
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
New Cultural Studies is both an introductory reference work and an original study which explores new directions and territories for cultural studies. A new generation has begun to emerge from the shadow of the Birmingham School. It is a generation whose whole education has been shaped by theory, and who frequently turn to it as a means to think through some of the issues and current problems in contemporary culture and cultural studies. In a period when departments which were once hotbeds of "high theory" are returning to more sociological and social science oriented modes of research, and 9/11 and the war in Iraq especially have helped create a sense of "post-theoretical" political urgency which leaves little time for the "elitist," "Eurocentric," "textual" concerns of "Theory," theoretical approaches to the study of culture have, for many of this generation, never seemed so important or so vital. New Cultural Studies explores theory's past, present, and most especially future role in cultural studies. It does so by providing an authoritative and accessible guide, for students and teachers alike, to: the most innovative members of this "new generation" the thinkers and theories currently influencing new work in cultural studies: Agamben, Badiou, Deleuze, Derrida, Hardt and Negri, Kittler, Laclau, Levinas, and iek the new territories currently being mapped out across the intersections of cultural studies and cultural theory: anti-capitalism, ethics, the posthumanities, post-Marxism, and the transnational

Author: Mark Fenster
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816632421
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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JFK, Karl Marx, the Pope, Aristotle Onassis, Queen Elizabeth II, Howard Hughes, Fox Mulder, Bill Clinton -- all have been linked to vastly complicated global (or even galactic) intrigues. In this enlightening tour of conspiracy theories, Mark Fenster guides readers through this shadowy world and analyzes its complex role in American culture and politics. Fenster argues that conspiracy theories are a form of popular political interpretation and contends that understanding how they circulate through mass culture helps us better understand our society as a whole. To that end, he discusses Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics, the militia movement, The X-Files, popular Christian apocalyptic thought, and such artifacts of suspicion as The Turner Diaries, the Illuminatus! trilogy, and the novels of Richard Condon. Fenster analyzes the "conspiracy community" of radio shows, magazine and book publishers, Internet resources, and role-playing games that promote these theories. In this world, the very denial of a conspiracy's existence becomes proof that it exists, and the truth is always "out there." He believes conspiracy theory has become a thrill for a bored subculture, one characterized by its members' reinterpretation of "accepted" history, their deep cynicism about contemporary politics, and their longing for a utopian future. Fenster's progressive critique of conspiracy theories both recognizes the secrecy and inequities of power in contemporary politics and economics and works toward effective political engagement. Probing conspiracy theory's tendencies toward scapegoating, racism, and fascism, as well as Hofstadter's centrist acceptance of a postwar American"consensus, " he advocates what conspiracy theory wants but cannot articulate: a more inclusive, engaging political culture.

Author: Winston Napier
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814758096
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 745

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Fifty-one essays by writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as critics and academics such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. examine the central texts and arguments in African American literary theory from the 1920s through the present. Contributions are organized chronologically beginning with the rise of a black aesthetic criticism, through the Black Arts Movement, feminism, structuralism and poststructuralism, queer theory, and cultural studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Author: Christopher R. Fee
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 144085811X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 869

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Book Description
This up-to-date introduction to the complex world of conspiracies and conspiracy theories provides insight into why millions of people are so ready to believe the worst about our political, legal, religious, and financial institutions. Unsupported theories provide simple explanations for catastrophes that are otherwise difficult to understand, from the U.S. Civil War to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Ideas about shadowy networks that operate behind a cloak of secrecy, including real organizations like the CIA and the Mafia and imagined ones like the Illuminati, additionally provide a way for people to criticize prevailing political and economic arrangements, while for society's disadvantaged and forgotten groups, conspiracy theories make their suffering and alienation comprehensible and provide a focal point for their economic or political frustrations. These volumes detail the highly controversial and influential phenomena of conspiracies and conspiracy theories in American society. Through interpretive essays and factual accounts of various people, organizations, and ideas, the reader will gain a much greater appreciation for a set of beliefs about political scheming, covert intelligence gathering, and criminal rings that has held its grip on the minds of millions of American citizens and encouraged them to believe that the conspiracies may run deeper, and with a global reach.