Popular culture Books
Insight Editions Harry Potter House Pride: Official Coloring Book Boxed Set
£26.25
Insight Editions Harry Potter Flip Pop Hermione Granger
£19.80
Insight Editions Harry Potter Sculpted Journal Slytherin
Book SynopsisThis collectible, hardcover journal has an eye-catching sculpted cover featuring intricate, Slytherin-themed artwork from the Harry Potter films.
£19.19
Oxford University Press Memes Monsters and the Digital Grotesque
Book Synopsis
£85.50
The University of Chicago Press Tomorrow Never Knows Rock and Psychedelics in the
Book SynopsisThis work takes us back to the primal scene of the 1960s and asks: what happened when young people got high and listened to rock as if it really mattered - as if it offered meaning and sustenance, not just escape and entertainment?Trade Review"[A] short, passionate study written from inside the history it tells." - Greil Marcus, salon; "Music historians and social historians understate the interrelations among drugs, rock and roll, and the sixties, in part because most are thoroughly daunted by them as writers and thinkers. Nick Bromell renders them like he's been there and understands them like he's thought long and hard about them afterward. Tomorrow Never Knows reads like the best journalistic criticism both stylistically and interpretively - it's vivid, credible, and original." - Robert Christgau; "Tomorrow Never Knows brings us closer to the heart of what we call the sixties than any other book I know." - Jon Wiener, The Nation; "Bromell is aware of the underside of drug use, but he makes a convincing case that... the Sixties produced a way of seeing the world that succeeding generations can learn from." - Rolling Stone
£21.00
The University of Chicago Press Paris Blues
Book SynopsisThe Jazz Age. The phrase conjures images of Louis Armstrong holding court at the Sunset Cafe in Chicago. But the Jazz Age was every bit as much of a Paris phenomenon as it was a Chicago and New York scene. This book provides an alternative history of African American music and musicians in France.
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Globalizing American Studies
Book SynopsisThe discipline of American studies was established in the early days of World War II and drew on the myth of American exceptionalism. But now that the so-called American Century has come to an end, what would a truly globalized version of American studies look like? The authors offer a new standard for the field's transnational aspiration.
£30.00
The University of Chicago Press A Natural History of the New World The Ecology
Book SynopsisWhat are boys like? Who is the creature inhabiting the twilight zone between the perils of the Oedipus complex and the Strum und Drang of puberty? In With the Boys, Gary Alan Fine examines the American male preadolescent by studying the world of Little League baseball. Drawings on three years of firsthand observation of five Little Leagues, Fine describes how, through organized sport and its accompanying activities, boys learn to play, work, and generally be men.
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press Shanghai Nightscapes A Nocturnal Biography of a
Book SynopsisDrawing on over years of fieldwork and hundreds of interviews, the authors spotlight a largely hidden world of nighttime pleasures - the dancing, drinking, and socializing going on in dance clubs and bars that have flourished in Shanghai over the last century.
£76.00
University of Chicago Press Shanghai Nightscapes A Nocturnal Biography of a
Book SynopsisDrawing on over years of fieldwork and hundreds of interviews, the authors spotlight a largely hidden world of nighttime pleasures - the dancing, drinking, and socializing going on in dance clubs and bars that have flourished in Shanghai over the last century.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Thug Life Race Gender and the Meaning of HipHop
Book SynopsisHip-hop has come a long way from its origins in the Bronx in the 1970s, when rapping and Djing were just part of a lively, decidedly local scene that also venerated break-dancing and graffiti. Focusing on the music's fans - young men, both black and white, this book offers an unbiased examination of how hip-hop works in people's daily lives.Trade Review"Thug Life is a finely developed and sophisticated analysis of the complex terrain that is hip-hop. Jeffries' interdisciplinary scope is impressive; in addition to cultural criticism, elements of sociology, cultural history, literary criticism, and culture industry analysis inform the book, making it a fascinating read on several levels." - S. Craig Watkins, University of Texas at Austin"
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Get Out of My Room A History of Teen Bedrooms in
Book SynopsisTeenage life is tough. You're at the mercy of parents, teachers, and siblings, all of whom insist on continuing to treat you like a kid and refuse to leave you alone. So what do you do when it all gets to be too much? You retreat to your room (and maybe slam the door). Even in our era of Snapchat and hoverboards, bedrooms remain a key part of teenage life, one of the only areas where a teen can exert control and find some privacy. And while these separate bedrooms only became commonplace after World War II, the idea of the teen bedroom has been around for a long time. With Get Out of My Room!, Jason Reid digs into the deep historical roots of the teen bedroom and its surprising cultural power. He starts in the first half of the nineteenth century, when urban-dwelling middle-class families began to consider offering teens their own spaces in the home, and he traces that concept through subsequent decades, as social, economic, cultural, and demographic changes caused it to become more wi
£37.05
The University of Chicago Press Under a Bad Sign Criminal SelfRepresentation in
Book SynopsisWhat accounts for the persistence of the figure of the black criminal in popular culture created by African Americans? This title explores the rationale behind this tradition of criminal self-representation from the Harlem Renaissance to the gangsta culture. It traces the legacy of badness in Rudolph Fisher and Chester Himes' detective fiction.Trade Review"Munby is an engaging writer, a scholar with extraordinary mastery of a vast array of black expressive texts, and an original thinker about the relationships linking artistic works and their social and historical contexts. This is a splendid book whose argument will be of enormous value to both scholarship and civic life." (George Lipsitz, University of California, Santa Barbara)"
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Under a Bad Sign Criminal SelfRepresentation in
Book SynopsisWhat accounts for the persistence of the figure of the black criminal in popular culture created by African Americans? This title explores the rationale behind this tradition of criminal self-representation from the Harlem Renaissance to the gangsta culture. It traces the legacy of badness in Rudolph Fisher and Chester Himes' detective fiction.Trade Review"Munby is an engaging writer, a scholar with extraordinary mastery of a vast array of black expressive texts, and an original thinker about the relationships linking artistic works and their social and historical contexts. This is a splendid book whose argument will be of enormous value to both scholarship and civic life." (George Lipsitz, University of California, Santa Barbara)"
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press The Origins of Cool in Postwar America
Book SynopsisWhat is cool and where did it come from? The first you just have to know when you see it; the second is the postwar years. Dinerstein explains, covering all the usual suspects.Trade Review"Dinerstein has written a thoughtful and entertaining account of cool--the most powerful image of how one should be since the English gentleman dominated the world. It's a history, a handbook, and a manual, filled with fascinating accounts of those stellar individuals whose aggressively haughty, patrician coldness was rooted in hip opposition and revolt."--John Szwed, author of Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth "Dinerstein takes seriously the roots of cool. Rather than some kind of irresponsible, juvenile put-on or species of ill-earned irony, cool is shown to be a game played for the highest of stakes--personal survival in the face of the era's unconcealed racism and barbarity that gave the lie to western civilization's moral self-congratulation."--Benjamin Cawthra, author of Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz "These divisions, between white and black, Europe and America, individual and society, run through the history of cool and explain the different forms it takes and how these have evolved. . . . The history of post-war cool is both a history of these strange convergence--between French intellectuals, African American musicians and white working-class Hollywood heroes--and of the continuing conflicts between and within them. The real subject of Dinerstein's book is the debt that American culture owes to black art and style, and the way white America has responded to that debt."--Benjamin Markovits"Times Literary Supplement" (07/18/2017) "In his entertaining book, . . . Dinerstein shows that cool isn't just a style, it's an 'embodied philosophy' that is anchored in a specific generational circumstance. Cool was first of all a form of resistance and rebellion, a rejection of the innocence, optimism and consumer cheeriness that marked the mainstream postwar experience."--David Brooks "New York Times " "The Origins of Cool vibrates with the energy of its very subject--as restrained, composed, and revitalized as the postwar rebel himself. From the cafes of the existentialists to the bars of film noir, from Lester Young's sax to Elvis's pout, Dinerstein offers a brilliant exegesis of the simmering mode of resistance we call cool. He penetrates the meanings of a misunderstood mode--a concept, a mood, a posture--while connecting the rich details of art and culture to the deepest transformations of the postwar world. The Origins of Cool takes the elusive and inchoate and renders them clear and nearly tangible, making the reader feel this mysterious current of postwar culture as if for the first time. This is a masterwork."--Jefferson Cowie, author of Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class "The Origins of Cool in Postwar America will be the standard reference for those who wish to understand the deep historical roots for coolness as a cultural style and ethos--a 'public mode of covert resistance, ' an expression of faith in the integrity and agency of the individual in the face of depression, war, occupation, segregation, and the threat of nuclear annihilation--rather than as a trendy pose or an emblem of hip consumerism. Dinerstein has achieved something like a unified field theory of the postwar American arts combined with a history of ideas attached to the quest for ethical renewal and existential affirmation."--John Gennari, author of Blowin' Hot and Cool: Jazz and Its Critics
£21.00
The University of Chicago Press The Revolutions Echoes Music Politics and
Book Synopsis
£68.40
The University of Chicago Press The Revolutions Echoes
Book Synopsis
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Hack Stories from a Chicago Cab Chicago Visions
Book SynopsisCabdrivers and their yellow taxis are as much a part of the cityscape as the high-rise buildings and the subway. And, undoubtedly, taxi drivers have stories to tell. This title recounts tales that offers a vision of Chicago and its people.Trade Review"Fact: I first rode in Dmitry's cab when he was driving in Boston in 1993. He owned the first cellular phone that I ever saw, and he has been broadcasting back from the strange frontier of hack life ever since. He's good driver, but more than that, he's as skilled a navigator of the forgotten American city as you'll find, and his writing is funny, grim, humane, and welcome." (John Hodgman, author of More Information than You Require)"
£18.00
The University of Chicago Press When Law Goes Pop
Book SynopsisWhat are the consequences when legal culture and popular culture dissolve into each other? This text offers a study of law and popular culture. It argues that in the welter of communication technologies, an unrestrained marketplace, and postmodern ideas, law is increasingly becoming a spectacle.Trade Review"[Sherwin's] knowledge of how media culture affects the courtroom is valuable, as is his rigorous examination. Can we prevent America's legal system from going 'pop' - losing its legitimacy by becoming just another part of popular culture? Given America's courtroom obsession... it's about time someone did some explaining." - Julie Scelfo, Brill's Content; "[A] brilliant analysis of the jury system in our media-saturated age.... [D]iscerning readers will see a truly integrative intelligence at work, proposing possible solutions rather than simply bemoaning problems." - Publishers Weekly
£28.00
The University of Chicago Press The Republic of Love Cultural Intimacy in
Book SynopsisPresents the voices of three musicians - queer nightclub star Zeki Muren, arabesk originator Orhan Gencebay, and pop diva Sezen Aksu - who collectively have dominated mass media in Turkey since the early 1950s. Using these three singers as a lens, the author examines Turkey's repressive politics and civil violence as well as its public life.
£91.00
The University of Chicago Press The Republic of Love
Book SynopsisPresents the voices of three musicians - queer nightclub star Zeki Muren, arabesk originator Orhan Gencebay, and pop diva Sezen Aksu - who collectively have dominated mass media in Turkey since the early 1950s. Using these three singers as a lens, the author examines Turkey's repressive politics and civil violence as well as its public life.
£31.00
The University of Chicago Press Popularizing the Past Historians Publishers and
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Astute, informative, and skillfully researched, Witham’s thought-provoking analysis will appeal to historians (and aspiring historians) who want a better grasp on the challenges and opportunities of history as a profession and the business of popular-history books." * Library Journal *"In his new book Popularizing the Past, historian Nick Witham sheds light on five particularly interesting historians’ writing and publishing strategies during the mid-to-late twentieth century . . . Witham’s readings of these five figures offer sensitive analysis and point to the key questions about politics and publishing." * Boston Review *"I am very taken with Nick Witham’s illuminating book and hope that all practicing and aspiring US historians read it. Drawing on careful research and writing in sparkling prose that rivals his subjects', Witham examines how five prominent postwar historians navigated the challenges and rewards of scripting national narratives for audiences beyond the academy. For anyone interested in crafting intellectually robust, readable, and relevant scholarship, Popularizing the Past is essential reading." -- Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, author of American Nietzsche"A fascinating exploration of American historians searching for their publics and seeking to balance empirical depth and literary flair, scholarship and fame, objectivity and activism. Nick Witham's book is the most probing examination of these matters that I have read. Essential for understanding the importance and perils of writing popular history." -- Gary Gerstle, author of The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order"Those dispirited by today's skirmishes over the American past should seek out Nick Witham’s wonderful book on postwar history writing. His portrait of prominent scholars who wrote for the public offers a fresh take on popularization, presentism, and politicization—even as it underscores the essential work of histories that educate and engross readers." -- Sarah E. Igo, author of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America"The argument of Witham’s book is that the audience for popular historical nonfiction that explains America to itself has always been a diverse one, made up of various types of readers. The imagined past, when an idealised American reader relaxed by the fireside with a sturdy tome written by a credentialed academic, is, largely speaking, a fiction…The best parts of Popularizing the Past are the archival discoveries of letters from readers, and between editors and writers, showing the nitty-gritty of how this sausage got made – and eaten." * History Today *"[An] engaging, instructive account of the efforts by five postwar American academic historians – and, importantly, their editors and publishers – to reach a broader, non-scholarly audience with their work . . . . If historians wish to produce work that resonates with ordinary readers while being taken seriously by fellow specialists, it can be done. And for guidance on how to do it they could do worse than look to those who, three-quarters of a century ago, set about ‘popularizing the past.'" -- Fredrik Logevall * Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsIntroduction What’s the Matter with History? The Problem of Popularity in Postwar American Historical Writing Part I Popular History and General Readers 1 Richard Hofstadter: Popular History and the Contradictions of Consensus 2 Daniel Boorstin: Popular History between Liberalism and Conservatism Part II: Popular History and Activist Readers 3 John Hope Franklin: The Racial Politics of Popular History 4 Howard Zinn: Popular History as Controversy 5 Gerda Lerner: The Struggle for a Popular Women’s History Conclusion The Legacies of Postwar Popular History Acknowledgments Archival Abbreviations Notes Index
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Hating Jazz
Book Synopsis
£82.80
The University of Chicago Press Black Camelot
Book SynopsisThis work examines the emergence of the ethnic hero within popular culture. It looks at the dynamic rise of African-American pop icons, the social and historical contexts in which they flourished, and their powerful impact on the African-American community.
£26.00
The University of Chicago Press Theater of the Mind
Book SynopsisFor generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a theater of the mind. This book examines that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its historical context.Trade Review"Theater of the Mind does more to reanimate the study of radio forms and structures - indeed, of sound art in general - than any work published in recent memory. Neil Verma's exploration of audio narratives and sonic techniques during radio drama's heyday opens up a vast body of creative work that has been shut off from serious contemplation for decades. It is an important intervention in the growing field of sound studies, not to be missed." (Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin - Madison)"
£90.00
The University of Chicago Press Theater of the Mind Imagination Aesthetics and
Book SynopsisFor generations, fans and critics have characterized classic American radio drama as a theater of the mind. This book examines that characterization by recasting the radio play as an aesthetic object within its historical context.Trade Review"Theater of the Mind does more to reanimate the study of radio forms and structures - indeed, of sound art in general - than any work published in recent memory. Neil Verma's exploration of audio narratives and sonic techniques during radio drama's heyday opens up a vast body of creative work that has been shut off from serious contemplation for decades. It is an important intervention in the growing field of sound studies, not to be missed." (Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin - Madison)"
£31.00
The University of Chicago Press The Scene of Harlem Cabaret
Book SynopsisHarlem's nightclubs in the 1920s and '30s were a crucible for testing society's racial and sexual limits. Combining performance theory, historical research, and biographical study, this title explores the role of nightlife performance as a definitive touchstone for understanding the racial and sexual politics of the early 20th century.
£76.00
The University of Chicago Press Representing Hip Hop Culture and the Production
Book SynopsisExamines developments in black cinema - the ascendancy of Spike Lee and the proliferation of ghettocentric films. The work examines a distinct contradiction in American society: black youth have become targets of a racial backlash but their popular cultures have become commercially viable.Table of ContentsIntroduction - black youth at century's end; social conservatism and the culture wars; black youth and the ironies of capitalism; black cinema and the changing landscape of industrial image making; producing the Spike Lee joint; Spike's joint; producing ghetto pictures; the ghettocentric imagination; epilogue - the culture industry and the hip hop generation
£23.00
The University of Chicago Press To Have and to Hold Marriage the Baby Boom and
Book SynopsisThis analysis of post-war middle-class family life draws on interviews with American couples from the 1950s to the 1980s, and examines the relationship between their actual experiences and the images of them portrayed in the popular culture.
£24.00
The University of Chicago Press Wannabes Goths and Christians The Boundaries of
Book SynopsisAims to reveal a tug-of-war between the demands of race, class, and gender in which transgressing in one realm often means conforming to expectations in another. This book shows that subcultures navigate these connecting territories by offering them different sexual strategies. It presents a portrait of the structure of young lives.Trade Review"This is a beautifully, pungently written book in which telling ethnographic detail and compelling, often entertaining, narrative accounts are deployed in the service of a theoretically sophisticated, well-argued analysis. It is both provocative and riveting." - Mary Ann Clawson, Wesleyan University"
£27.00
The University of Chicago Press Gentleman Troubadours and Andean Pop Stars
Book SynopsisFocusing on popular huayno music and the ways it has been promoted to Peru's emerging middle class, the author tells a complex story of identity making and the marketing forces entangled with it, providing crucial insights into the dynamics among art, class, and ethnicity that reach far beyond the Andes.
£84.00
The University of Chicago Press Gentleman Troubadours and Andean Pop Stars
Book SynopsisFocusing on popular huayno music and the ways it has been promoted to Peru's emerging middle class, the author tells a complex story of identity making and the marketing forces entangled with it, providing crucial insights into the dynamics among art, class, and ethnicity that reach far beyond the Andes.
£28.00
John Wiley & Sons Back to the Stone Age Race and Prehistory in
Book SynopsisPrehistoric human life is a common reference point in contemporary culture, inspiring attempts to become happier, healthier, better people. Back to the Stone Age explores how ideas about race are tightly woven into the prehistoric imagination, revealing insights into present-day anxieties and showing that the human past is not set in stone.Trade Review“An engaging and eclectic catalogue of case studies that highlight ideas of race in places where most people wouldn’t think to look for them, from the iconography of Stonehenge to what it really means to call Donald Trump a Neanderthal. I now feel vindicated in my instinctive aversion to the paleo diet and survival-based reality television; others will find tools for their anti-racist endeavours within these pages too.” Subhadra Das, author of (Un)Civilised: 10 Lies That Made the West“Breathtaking in scope, often hilarious in tone, serious about scholarship, and full of critical insight, Back to the Stone Age shows how and why we need to engage with the distant past in order to work towards what we would like to be now. Essential reading for our times, this is a book for all antiracists desperate to save our shared planetary home.” Vron Ware, author of Return of a Native: Learning from the Land“This stimulating book … explores ways in which people seek solace and inspiration by engaging with prehistory in a modern world failed by technology and capitalism. [Pitcher] takes us through “survival” television; race, class and log-burners (this book is nothing if not eclectic); genetic ancestry; prehistoric landscapes (Stonehenge and Brexit); museum representations of Neanderthals; and links between popular culture and science (in which he discovers a buried Wu-Tang Clan cd at Piltdown).” British Archaeology
£91.80
McGill-Queen's University Press Back to the Stone Age
Book SynopsisPrehistoric human life is a common reference point in contemporary culture, inspiring attempts to become happier, healthier, better people. Back to the Stone Age explores how ideas about race are tightly woven into the prehistoric imagination, revealing insights into present-day anxieties and showing that the human past is not set in stone.Trade Review“An engaging and eclectic catalogue of case studies that highlight ideas of race in places where most people wouldn’t think to look for them, from the iconography of Stonehenge to what it really means to call Donald Trump a Neanderthal. I now feel vindicated in my instinctive aversion to the paleo diet and survival-based reality television; others will find tools for their anti-racist endeavours within these pages too.” Subhadra Das, author of (Un)Civilised: 10 Lies That Made the West“Breathtaking in scope, often hilarious in tone, serious about scholarship, and full of critical insight, Back to the Stone Age shows how and why we need to engage with the distant past in order to work towards what we would like to be now. Essential reading for our times, this is a book for all antiracists desperate to save our shared planetary home.” Vron Ware, author of Return of a Native: Learning from the Land“This stimulating book … explores ways in which people seek solace and inspiration by engaging with prehistory in a modern world failed by technology and capitalism. [Pitcher] takes us through “survival” television; race, class and log-burners (this book is nothing if not eclectic); genetic ancestry; prehistoric landscapes (Stonehenge and Brexit); museum representations of Neanderthals; and links between popular culture and science (in which he discovers a buried Wu-Tang Clan cd at Piltdown).” British Archaeology
£27.90
McGill-Queen's University Press What Television Remembers
Book SynopsisWhat Television Remembers explores the relationship between the medium of TV and the city of Toronto. In a close reading of CBC dramas from the 1960s to 2010, VanderBurgh explains how the city has functioned as a strategic location in CBC programming, reflecting changing ideas about Canadian identity, community, and citizenship.Trade Review“A great book to think with, an excellent contribution to the history and study of Canadian television, and an important meditation on the central problem of performing research on Canada’s media culture when there is such a paucity of archival resources, What Television Remembers is also a pleasure to read. VanderBurgh’s writing is clear, concise, and evocative.” Ira Wagman, Carleton University
£26.99
Palgrave Macmillan Sharing our Lives Online Risks and Exposure in
Book SynopsisWhy do we share so much about our lives on social media when we often have little idea who might be reading or viewing? David R. Brake examines the causes and consequences of moving towards a radically open society.Trade Review“Sharing our lives online: Risks and exposure in social media, by David R. Brake is a comprehensive research-based book, dealing with the risks of sharing and revealing personal information online. … David R. Brake has extracted this book out of his doctoral dissertation, which makes it an interesting example for postdoctoral researchers to publish their research.” (Marziyeh Ebrahimi, Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 21 (12), 2018)'In the age of social media sharing, David R. Brake presents a nuanced, evidence-based, and highly readable account of the dangers of exposing our lives online, grounded in understandable scientific and scholarly theory. Steering between uncritical enthusiasm at one pole and moral panic at the other - extremes that have characterized much of the public discourse about the effects of social media - Brake shows exactly how, and in what circumstances, sharing aspects of our personal lives online can be risky. Sharing our Lives Online also offers sound advice to individuals and parents who need to know what to do themselves to take advantage of social media without running into the pitfalls of oversharing, and need to know how to talk to their children about risks and cautions.' - Howard Rheingold '[Sharing our Lives Online] provides a compelling account of the risks of online communication and the ways in which technologies are constructed to lead us to disclose more than we may think. [His research is] delicately woven into a rich discussion of the economic, technical and social factors that encourage self-disclosure [and features] a fascinating glimpse into blogging practice over time... An engaging and illuminating book.' Times Higher Education 'Sharing Our Lives Online is an interesting resource for students and scholars in the fields of digital media and interpersonal communication but also for a non-academic audience interested in the risks of online self-exposure. Not only does it successfully combine theoretical discussion and empirical examination; it also draws upon specific case studies that make the reading particularly accessible.' - LSE Review of Books, 2014Table of ContentsTable of Contents 1. Introduction 2. What is Risky and Who is at Risk? 3. How and Why Social Media Interaction is Different 4. Imagining the Reader 5. Time and Memory in Social Media 6. Towards a Radically Open Society 7. Conclusion Bibliography
£42.74
Columbia University Press Taking the Train
Book SynopsisTraces the history of graffiti in New York City against the backdrop of the struggle that developed between the city and the writers.Trade ReviewAustin argues that the graffiti epidemic was really a smokescreen for poor civic management, and that graffiti itself was the inevitable result of a whole outpouring of structural social factors. New York Times Book Review Although solidly academic, this book is enlivened by its fascinating topic. Booklist A meticulous history. Booklist Austin's precise, witty, and genial style perfectly meshes with his rigorous research and analysis... This exemplary study makes important contributions to understanding contemporary art, urban sociology, and the culture wars. Publishers Weekly (starred review) Lets the graf writers talk back to the haters, while offering a nuanced reassessment of New York City's graffiti scene. Village Voice Austin does full justice simultaneously to New York as a symbolic, although never more than partially representable, city; to changes in the city's economy which create nationally unusual shifts in the relative distribution of wealth and in the ethnic make-up of poverty...ranges widely and with rich detail, yet always anchored in the central narrative focus. Urban StudiesTable of ContentsPrologue 1. A Tale of Two Cities 2. Taking the Trains: The Formation and Structure of "Writing Culture" in the Early 1970s 3. Writing "Graffiti" in the Public Sphere: The Construction of Writing as an Urban Problem 4. Repainting the Trains: The New York School of the 1970s 5. The State of the Subways: The Transit Crisis, the Aesthetics of Fear, and the Second "War on Graffiti" 6. Writing Histories 7. Retaking the Trains 8. The Walls and the World: Writing Culture, 1982-1990 Conclusion: A Spot on the Wall Appendix: Sources from Writers Notes Selected Bibliography Acknowledgments Index
£29.75
Columbia University Press Oprah Winfrey and the Glamour of Misery
Book SynopsisAt a time when crises of morality, beliefs, value systems, and personal worth dominate both public and private spheres, Oprah's emergence as a cultural form - the Oprah persona - becomes clearer, as she successfully reiterates some of our pressing moral questions. This book looks at Oprah's method and her message.Trade ReviewWe should commend Illouz in her willingness to blaze a new, and certainly untested path in anthropological writing. -- Seth Jacobs Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Outstanding... its author digs deeper into her subject matter than any other researcher yet to address Oprah. -- David W. Park Journal of CommunicationTable of Contents1. Introduction: Oprah Winfrey and the Sociology of Culture 2. The Success of a Self-Failed Woman 3. Everyday Life as the Uncanny: The Oprah Winfrey Show as a New Cultural Genre 4. Pain and Circuses 5. The Hypertext of Identity 6. Suffering and Self-Help as Global Forms of Identity 7. The Sources and Resources of The Oprah Winfrey Show 8. Toward an Impure Critique of Popular Culture 9. Conclusion: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Television Notes Bibliography Index
£27.00
Columbia University Press Visions of Belonging
Book SynopsisExplores how the family stories entered the popular imagination and shaped collective dreams in the postwar years and into the 1950s. This book also provides access to a vibrant conversation among white and black Americans about the boundaries between public life and family matters, and the meanings of race and ethnicity.Trade ReviewSmith's treatment gives readers much to consider...Highly recommended. Choice Visions of Belonging is a monumental work of cultural history... Judith Smith has challenged the common wisdom... And made a powerful contribution. -- Elaine Tyler May Journal of Interdisciplinary History Smith's Visions of Belonging is a masterpiece of interdisciplinary scholarship. Research, narrative, and analysis are all exemplary, making the book a 'must read' on the topic of post-war American cultural and social history. Canadian Review of American Studies A powerful & meticulously researched study of fourteen stories that helped to plot the boundaries of cultural citizenship. -- Dara Orenstein Journal of American Ethnic History [It] is full of vitality and is bound to be used, cited, and assigned to generations of students. -- Joseph Hawes Journal of American History Smith has written an important book that will serve as a great resource for historians of American postwar culture and politics. -- Renee Romano American Historical Review A very remarkable and extremely useful book. -- Paul Buhle Film International [This] consistently nuanced and impeccably informed analysis... raises provocative questions. -- Crista DeLuzio H-Net Reviews Highly readable and sensitively written. -- Martin Fradley Film Quarterly [A] rich, fascinating, and important book. -- William Graebner American StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Part 1. Ordinary Families, Popular Culture, and Popular Democracy, 1935-1945 Radio's Formula Drama Popular Theater and Popular Democracy Popular Democracy on the Radio Popular Democracy in Wartime: Multiethnic and Multiracial? Representing the Soldier The New World of the Home Front Soldiers as Veterans: Imagining the Postwar World Looking Back Stories Part 2. Making the Working-Class Family Ordinary: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn From Working-Class Daughter to Working-Class Writer Revising 1930s Radical Visions Remembering a Working-Class Past Instructing the Middle Class The Ethnic and Racial Boundaries of the Ordinary Making Womanhood Ordinary Hollywood Revises A Tree Grows in Brooklyn The Declining Appeal of Tree's Social Terrain Part 3. Home Front Harmony and Remembering Mama "Mama's Bank Account" and Other Ethnic Working-Class Fictions Remembering Mama on the Stage The Mother Next Door on Film, 1947-1948 Mama on CBS, 1949-1956 The Appeal of TV Mama's Ordinary Family "Trading Places" Stories Part 4. Loving Across Prewar Racial and Sexual Boundaries Lillian Smith and Strange Fruit Quality Reinstates the Color Line Strange Fruit as Failed Social Drama The Returning Negro Soldier, Interracial Romance, and Deep Are the Roots Interracial Male Homosociability in Home of the Brave Part 5. "Seeing Through" Jewishness Perception and Racial Boundaries in Focus Policing Racial and Gender Boundaries in The Brick Foxhole Recasting the Victim in Crossfire Deracializing Jewishness in Gentleman's Agreement Part 6. Hollywood Makes Race (In)Visible "A Great Step Forward": The Film Home of the Brave Lost Boundaries: Racial Indeterminacy as Whiteness Pinky: Racial Indeterminacy as Blackness Trading Places or No Way Out? Everyman Stories Part 7. Competing Postwar Representations of Universalism The "Truly Universal People": Richard Durham's Destination Freedom The Evolution of Arthur Miller's Ordinary Family Miller's Search for "the People," 1947-1948 The Creation of an Ordinary American Tragedy: Death of a Salesman The Rising Tide of Anticommunism Part 8. Marital Realism and Everyman Love Stories Marital Realism Before and After the Blacklist The Promise of Live Television Drama Paddy Chayefsky's Everyman Ethnicity Conservative and Corporate Constraints on Representing the Ordinary Filming Television's "Ordinary": Marty's Everyman Romance Part 9. Reracializing the Ordinary American Family: Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry's South Side Childhood Leaving Home, Stepping "Deliberately Against the Beat" The Freedom Family and the Black Left "I Am a Writer": Hansberry in Greenwich Village Raisin in the Sun: Hansberry's Conception, Audience Reception Frozen in the Frame: The Film of Raisin Visions of Belonging Notes Index
£28.50
Columbia University Press Cool Men and the Second Sex
Book SynopsisAcademic superstars Andrew Ross, Edward Said, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr Bad boy filmmakers Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, and Brian de Palma. What do these influential contemporary figures have in common? This work identifies them all with "cool masculinity" and boldly unpacks the gender politics of their work.Table of Contents1. Quentin Tarantino: Anatomy of Cool 2. Spike Lee and Brian De Palma: Scenarios of Race and Rape 3. Edward Said: Gender, Culture, and Imperialism 4. Andrew Ross: The Romance of the Bad Boy 5. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.: Figures in Black Masculinity 6. Queer Theory and the Second Sex Postscript: Doing the Right Thing
£82.80
Columbia University Press Classical Japanese A Grammar
Book SynopsisClassical Japanese: A Grammar is a comprehensive, and practical guide to classical Japanese. It includes detailed explanations of basic grammar and explains how classical Japanese is related to modern Japanese. This companion volume includes exercise answers and tables.
£18.00
Columbia University Press Indie
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewIndie makes a significant contribution to the literature on American independent cinema, one that is likely to reshape debates and discussions for several years to come. By broadening the definition of independent cinema beyond simple industrial formulations, Newman charts the contours of 'indie' as a particular taste culture involving particular structures of distribution, consumption, and critical reception. By showing how companies built a niche audience of upscale consumers by targeting their "indie" sensibilities, Newman's book beautifully captures the multidimensional quality of American independent cinema in the nineties and 'naughts': its formal play, multicultural appeal, and 'branding' as off-Hollywood product. -- Jeff Smith, University of Wisconsin, author of The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music Quirky, 'outside the zombie mainstream,' authentic, alternative, playful, self-conscious: these are terms used to define 'indie' cinema. In this insightful and cogent book, Michael Z. Newman gathers together a set of American films produced since the mid-1980s and considers them as a social art world: films created in a network of festivals and critical praise that collectively make particular viewing requests to elite movie-goers. As an intelligent approach to grappling with this complex phenomenon, Newman's argument is highly successful. -- Janet Staiger, University of Texas, Austin, and author of Media Reception Studies Michael Z. Newman captures the very essence of American independent cinema during the 'Miramax-Sundance' years. Through an emphasis on the viewing strategies that independent films invite their audiences to utilize, his study delves into the core of what makes this type of cinema distinct while also revealing the connective tissue behind the culture that produces and consumes it. Thorough and extremely engaging, Indie is a most welcome addition to the study of American independent film. -- Yannis Tzioumakis, author of American Independent Cinema: An Introduction ...this concrete, objective study makes an important contribution to the ongoing coversation. Highly recommended. ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part I: Context 1. Indie Cinema Viewing Strategies 2. Home Is Where the Art Is: Indie Film Institutions Part II: Character 3. Indie Realism: Character-Centered Narrative and Social Engagement Part III: Formal Play 4. Pastiche as Play: The Coen Brothers 5. Games of Narrative Form: Pulp Fiction and Beyond Part IV: Against Hollywood 6. Indie Opposition: Happiness vs. Juno Notes Bibliography Index
£79.20
Columbia University Press Indie
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewIndie makes a significant contribution to the literature on American independent cinema, one that is likely to reshape debates and discussions for several years to come. By broadening the definition of independent cinema beyond simple industrial formulations, Newman charts the contours of 'indie' as a particular taste culture involving particular structures of distribution, consumption, and critical reception. By showing how companies built a niche audience of upscale consumers by targeting their "indie" sensibilities, Newman's book beautifully captures the multidimensional quality of American independent cinema in the nineties and 'naughts': its formal play, multicultural appeal, and 'branding' as off-Hollywood product. -- Jeff Smith, University of Wisconsin, author of The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music Quirky, 'outside the zombie mainstream,' authentic, alternative, playful, self-conscious: these are terms used to define 'indie' cinema. In this insightful and cogent book, Michael Z. Newman gathers together a set of American films produced since the mid-1980s and considers them as a social art world: films created in a network of festivals and critical praise that collectively make particular viewing requests to elite movie-goers. As an intelligent approach to grappling with this complex phenomenon, Newman's argument is highly successful. -- Janet Staiger, University of Texas, Austin, and author of Media Reception Studies Michael Z. Newman captures the very essence of American independent cinema during the 'Miramax-Sundance' years. Through an emphasis on the viewing strategies that independent films invite their audiences to utilize, his study delves into the core of what makes this type of cinema distinct while also revealing the connective tissue behind the culture that produces and consumes it. Thorough and extremely engaging, Indie is a most welcome addition to the study of American independent film. -- Yannis Tzioumakis, author of American Independent Cinema: An Introduction ...this concrete, objective study makes an important contribution to the ongoing coversation. Highly recommended. ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction Part I: Context 1. Indie Cinema Viewing Strategies 2. Home Is Where the Art Is: Indie Film Institutions Part II: Character 3. Indie Realism: Character-Centered Narrative and Social Engagement Part III: Formal Play 4. Pastiche as Play: The Coen Brothers 5. Games of Narrative Form: Pulp Fiction and Beyond Part IV: Against Hollywood 6. Indie Opposition: Happiness vs. Juno Notes Bibliography Index
£25.20
Columbia University Press Gilbert and Sullivan
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA superb examination of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas... Highly recommended.Library Journal Library Journal Rich, challenging, irritating, inspiring, provocative, just what one wants in a new G&S study, this is a worthwhile albeit tough read. CHOICE Williams substantive study is all the more praiseworthy because her biting insights into gender and sexuality, sharpened through the lens of contemporary critical theory, are tucked within what could pass as a much more staid study of Gilbert and Sullivan. -- Josephine Lee Nineteenth Century Gender Studies Unmodified rapture should best describe the scholarly reponse to this exciting contribution to a broad swath of disciplines... Victorian Studies this book will be an important reference point for future discussions of Gilbert and Sullivan, gender, and the Victorian stage. -- Benjamin D. O'Dell English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 [A] triumphant cultural history. -- Joseph Bristow Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 An outstanding pick... this is a recommendation for any college-level course in Gilbert and Sullivan, and for readers who would receive a fine reinterpretation of their works and impact. Midwest Book ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Genres 1. Outmoding Classical Extravaganza, Englishing Opera Bouffe: Thespis 2. Gender in the Breach: Trial by Jury 3. English Magic, English Intoxication: The Sorcerer 4. "Never Mind the Why and Wherefore": The Parody of Nautical Melodrama in H.M.S. Pinafore 5. Recollecting Illegitimacy: The Pirates of Penzance Part II. Genders 6. New Light on Changing Gender Norms: Patience 7. Transforming the Fairy Genres: Women on Top in Iolanthe 8. War Between the Sexes: Princess Ida Part III. Cultures 9. Estrangement and Familiarity: The Mikado 10. Mixing It Up: Gothic and Nautical Melodrama in Ruddigore 11. The Past Is a Foreign Country: The Yeomen of the Guard 12. Imaginary Republicanism: The Gondoliers 13. Capitalism and Colonialism: Utopia, Limited 14. Continental Recollections: The Grand Duke After Gilbert and Sullivan: The Momentum of Parody Notes Index
£87.40
Columbia University Press Gilbert and Sullivan
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA superb examination of Gilbert and Sullivan's comic operas... Highly recommended.Library Journal Library Journal Rich, challenging, irritating, inspiring, provocative, just what one wants in a new G&S study, this is a worthwhile albeit tough read. CHOICE Williams substantive study is all the more praiseworthy because her biting insights into gender and sexuality, sharpened through the lens of contemporary critical theory, are tucked within what could pass as a much more staid study of Gilbert and Sullivan. -- Josephine Lee Nineteenth Century Gender Studies Unmodified rapture should best describe the scholarly reponse to this exciting contribution to a broad swath of disciplines... Victorian Studies this book will be an important reference point for future discussions of Gilbert and Sullivan, gender, and the Victorian stage. -- Benjamin D. O'Dell English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 [A] triumphant cultural history. -- Joseph Bristow Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 An outstanding pick... this is a recommendation for any college-level course in Gilbert and Sullivan, and for readers who would receive a fine reinterpretation of their works and impact. Midwest Book ReviewTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Genres 1. Outmoding Classical Extravaganza, Englishing Opera Bouffe: Thespis 2. Gender in the Breach: Trial by Jury 3. English Magic, English Intoxication: The Sorcerer 4. "Never Mind the Why and Wherefore": The Parody of Nautical Melodrama in H.M.S. Pinafore 5. Recollecting Illegitimacy: The Pirates of Penzance Part II. Genders 6. New Light on Changing Gender Norms: Patience 7. Transforming the Fairy Genres: Women on Top in Iolanthe 8. War Between the Sexes: Princess Ida Part III. Cultures 9. Estrangement and Familiarity: The Mikado 10. Mixing It Up: Gothic and Nautical Melodrama in Ruddigore 11. The Past Is a Foreign Country: The Yeomen of the Guard 12. Imaginary Republicanism: The Gondoliers 13. Capitalism and Colonialism: Utopia, Limited 14. Continental Recollections: The Grand Duke After Gilbert and Sullivan: The Momentum of Parody Notes Index
£26.60
Columbia University Press The Late Age of Print
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis collection of historical and commercial analysis should fascinate those seriously involved with book culture and/or the industry. Publishers Weekly Forget the premature obituaries for books and reading. Striphas insists that books remain a vital presence in the twenty-first century. Booklist The Late Age of Print is an important history of the book and their impact on (mostly) American culture. Sacramento Book Review It is rare to say of a university press hardcover that it is a "must-read," but for those interested in the confluence of culture and economics as it relates to books, that is what The Late Age of Print is. -- Richard Nash Critical Flame This book is a gold mine of information and thought about book culture in the 20th and 21st centuries. -- Gwen M. Gregory Information Today A solid work of scholarship that fills in several significant gaps... Highly Recommended. Choice A magnificent achievement that makes a compelling series of arguments about the continuing importance of books and book publishing. Publishing Research Quarterly Striphas does an excellent job. -- Alan Jacobs Books and Culture What is it that you purchase when you buy a book? In describing the answer, [Striphas]is admirably clear about the choices publishers or booksellers made, and why. Technology and CultureTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: The Late Age of Print 1. E-books and the Digital Future 2. The Big-Box Bookstore Blues 3. Bringing Bookland Online 4. Literature as Life on Oprah's Book Club 5. Harry Potter and the Culture of the Copy Conclusion: From Consumerism to Control Notes Index
£66.50
Columbia University Press Firestorm
Book SynopsisTrade Review[Firestorm] will be a popular resource for film students. -- James Clarke Times Higher Education Supplement Prince's impressively thorough and intelligently written book will serve as a guide for some years to this visually indelible episode in American history... Essential. Choice offers a detailed and insightful critical analysis while avoiding jargon...Firestorm isa remarkable achievement as a first look at the impact of 11 September on filmmaking, and lays the groundwork for any number of new approaches. -- Jeffrey Mazo Survival [A] thoughtful and thorough investigation of the celluloid response to that chilling September day. -- Luke Davies The Australian A rich record and accounting of the first decade of responses by both mainstream and marginal American filmmakers. -- Corey K. Creekmur CineasteTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Theater of Mass Destruction 2. Shadows Once Removed 3. Ground Zero in Focus 4. Battleground Iraq 5. Terrorism on the Small Screen 6. No End in Sight Appendix 1: Historical Timeline Appendix 2: Filmography Notes Bibliography Index
£26.60
Columbia University Press Sayonara Amerika Sayonara Nippon
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewMichael K. Bourdaghs's compellingly readable Sayonara Amerika, Sayonara Nippon imaginatively conceives an original account of how Japan, in the postwar and Cold War years, broke with a historical narrative centered on the United States military occupation and Japan's subsequent confinement within the American imperium to enter the actual world. Bourdaghs persuasively shows how Japan, through the production of diverse forms of popular music and the formation of its audiences, engaged a genuinely global geopolitical aesthetics, shaping it and being shaped by it, that successfully left behind the narrow precinct of America's Japan for the new world announced by J-Pop. -- Harry Harootunian, Duke University, author of Overcome by Modernity: History, Culture, and Community in Interwar Japan For music, history, or cultural fans of contemporary Japan, this book is a chart-topper. -- Kris Kosaka Japan Times It is truly encouraging to see this Asian specialist presenting an excellent study of a subject so often mishandled in poorly researched journal articles. Bravo! Highly recommended. Choice A well-researched account of the rise of Japanese popular music in the post-war period and is recommended for anyone who has an interest in music as a form of cultural production. -- Eric Abbey Popular Music and SocietyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments A Note on Names and the Translation Introduction 1. The Music Will Set You Free: Kurosawa Akira, Kasagi Shizuko, and the Road to Freedom in Occupied Japan 2. Mapping Misora Hibari: Where Have All the Asians Gone? 3. Mystery Plane: Sakamoto Kyu and the Translations of Rockabilly 4. Working Within the System: Group Sounds and the Commercial and Revolutionary Potential of Noise 5. New Music and the Negation of the Negation: Happy End, Arai Yumi, and Yellow Magic Orchestra' 6. The Japan That Can "Say Yes": Bubblegum Music in a Postbubble Economy Coda Notes Index
£23.75
