Popular culture Books

Book SynopsisSuitable for scholars and students in popular music studies and American Studies as well as general readers interested in popular music, this book brings voices and perspectives to the study of popular-and particularly rock-music.Trade Review“Smart, provocative, contradictory, suggestive, irritating, inspiring, exhaustive, exhausting and over the top—Rock Over the Edge takes the imperative of its title seriously, though often with a welcome sense of humor. Anyone who cares about popular music will find much in here to react to—either by shouting out in affirmation, or hurling the damn thing against the wall.”—Anthony DeCurtis, author of Rocking My Life Away: Writing About Music and Other Matters“Well written and engaging, these essays combine high levels of scholarship with a much more intimate familiarity with popular musical culture than is common within popular music studies. The range of styles makes for a lively and even endearing collection.”—Will Straw, McGill UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction / Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, and Ben Saunders Discourses / Histories Reflections of a Disappointed Popular Music Scholar / Lawrence Grossberg Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon / Robert Fink “Think about What You’re Trying to Do to Me”: Rock Historiography and the Construction of a Race-Based Dialectic / John J. Sheinbaum Hijacked Hits and Antic Authenticity: Cover Songs, Race, and Postwar Marketing / Michael Coyle New Spaces / New Maps Why Isn’t Country Music “Youth” Culture? / Trent Hill Just A Girl? Rock Music, Feminism, and the Cultural Construction of Female Youth / Gayle Wald Satellite Rhythms: Channel V, Asian Music Videos, and Transnational Gender / Lisa Parks The “Feminization” of Rock / Tony Grajeda Rock’s Reconquista / Josh Kun Desires Affects A Fan’s Notes: Identification, Desire, and the Haunted Sound Barrier / R. J. Warren Zanes Mourning Becomes . . .? Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, and the “Waning of Affect” / Roger Beebe D. C. Punk and the Production of Authenticity / Jason Middleton Queen Theory: Notes on the Pet Shop Boys / Ian Balfour Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the significance of the wedding ceremony by asking what the wedding becomes when you separate it from the idea of marriage. This book finds that weddings - as performances, fantasies, and rituals of transformation - are sites for imagining and enacting forms of social intimacy other than monogamous heterosexuality.Trade Review“The Wedding Complex by Elizabeth Freeman is an extremely original and important work. Freeman takes a distinctly new and different approach to American canonical texts, asking what forms of belonging and desire they produce outside of normative marital unions. For Freeman, the wedding produces and imagines social and cultural relations and kinship forms even as the heterosexual marriage erases these other modes of desire.”—Judith Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity“Elizabeth Freeman’s The Wedding Complex performs a crucial scholarly and public service—disentangling the messy, expansive, uncontainable work of the wedding from the normative regulation of the law of marriage. This book is sharp, funny, and deeply significant to current understandings of what is at stake in what are reductively called ‘the marriage debates.’ A must-read for activists and policymakers as well as across the disciplines.”—Lisa Duggan, author of Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence, and American Modernity“This subtly argued book provides welcome relief from the predictable debates that often surround the issue of same-sex marriage. Uncoupling the ritual of the wedding from the legal reality of the marriage, Elizabeth Freeman demonstrates that weddings are, in and of themselves, quite queer indeed. . . . She provides a cogent argument for avoiding the marriage trap while encouraging us to throw all the parties we want.” * Out *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments 1. Love among the Ruins 2. The We of Me: The Member of the Wedding’s Novel Alliances 3. “That Troth Which Failed to Plight”: Race, the Wedding, and Kin Aesthetics in Absalom, Absalom! 4. “A Diabolical Circle for the Divell to Daunce In”: Foundational Weddings and the Problem of Civil Marriage 5. Honeymoon with a Stranger: Private Couplehood and the Making of the National Subject 6. The Immediate Country, or, Heterosexuality in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Coda Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisExplores the significance of the wedding ceremony by asking what the wedding becomes when you separate it from the idea of marriage. This book finds that weddings - as performances, fantasies, and rituals of transformation - are sites for imagining and enacting forms of social intimacy other than monogamous heterosexuality.Trade Review“The Wedding Complex by Elizabeth Freeman is an extremely original and important work. Freeman takes a distinctly new and different approach to American canonical texts, asking what forms of belonging and desire they produce outside of normative marital unions. For Freeman, the wedding produces and imagines social and cultural relations and kinship forms even as the heterosexual marriage erases these other modes of desire.”—Judith Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity“Elizabeth Freeman’s The Wedding Complex performs a crucial scholarly and public service—disentangling the messy, expansive, uncontainable work of the wedding from the normative regulation of the law of marriage. This book is sharp, funny, and deeply significant to current understandings of what is at stake in what are reductively called ‘the marriage debates.’ A must-read for activists and policymakers as well as across the disciplines.”—Lisa Duggan, author of Sapphic Slashers: Sex, Violence, and American Modernity“This subtly argued book provides welcome relief from the predictable debates that often surround the issue of same-sex marriage. Uncoupling the ritual of the wedding from the legal reality of the marriage, Elizabeth Freeman demonstrates that weddings are, in and of themselves, quite queer indeed. . . . She provides a cogent argument for avoiding the marriage trap while encouraging us to throw all the parties we want.” * Out *Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments 1. Love among the Ruins 2. The We of Me: The Member of the Wedding’s Novel Alliances 3. “That Troth Which Failed to Plight”: Race, the Wedding, and Kin Aesthetics in Absalom, Absalom! 4. “A Diabolical Circle for the Divell to Daunce In”: Foundational Weddings and the Problem of Civil Marriage 5. Honeymoon with a Stranger: Private Couplehood and the Making of the National Subject 6. The Immediate Country, or, Heterosexuality in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Coda Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFeatures essays on cinema, the body, and the experience of modernity. Focusing on the experience of technological spectacle in American popular culture, this book reveals how popular culture tames the threats posed by technology and urban modernity, by immersing people in kinetic environments like those traversed by Plastic Man and Superman.Trade Review“Matters of Gravity is more than a collection of tour de force essays, although it is certainly that. It maps an important theoretical and critical project, reclaiming the ‘lively arts’ and exploring the kinetic and affective dimensions of popular culture. Scott Bukatman’s breathless prose and conceptual pyrotechnics embody popular culture’s dynamism, making us feel it, making us want to dance it. His writing crackles with wit, sparkles with vividness, and throbs with his own passionate engagement with his topic.”—Henry Jenkins, coeditor of Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture“Scott Bukatman is one of the very top figures in the attempt of cultural studies to understand modernity by looking at the interlocking of such phenomena as urbanism, new forms of masculinity, new technologies, and the role of the body.”—Dana Polan, author of the British Film Institute books In a Lonely Place and Pulp FictionTable of ContentsPreface xi Acknowledgments xv Introduction 1 One Remembering Cyberspace 1 There's Always . . . Tomorrowland: Disney and the Hypercinematic Experience 13 2 Gibson's Typewriter 32 3 X-Bodies: The Torment of the Mutant Superhero (1994) 48 Two Kaleidoscopic Perceptions 4 The Artificial Infinite: On Special Effects and the Sublime 81 5 The Ultimate Trip: Special Effects and Kaleidoscopic Perception 111 Three The Grace of Beings 6 Taking Shape: Morphing and the Performance of Self 133 7 Syncopated City: New York in Musical Film (1929-1961) 157 8 The Boys in the Hoods: A Song of the Urban Superhero (2000) 184 Notes 225 Bibliography 257 Index 270

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Book SynopsisAn examination of how popular culture is received and produced within the Middle East.Trade Review“Rebecca L. Stein and Ted Swedenburg’s volume Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture makes an invaluable contribution to the growing field of Middle Eastern cultural studies. Refusing essentialist understandings of culture, the editors and authors also transcend traditional Marxist paradigms. The volume insightfully illuminates the often marginalized issue of the politics of culture within the contested terrain of Palestine and Israel.”—Ella Shohat, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Cultural Studies, New York University“This empirically rich, theoretically innovative, and unusually wide-ranging volume brings together a set of fascinating and insightful explorations of the popular culture and cultural politics of Palestine/Israel, including music, cinema, television, cyberculture, tourism, comics, and the role of Israel and the Jews in U. S. evangelical Christian eschatology. By demonstrating how culture has been a crucial and often formative domain of contention both within and between Arab and Jewish societies in Palestine over the past century and down to the present day, the contributors open up a great deal of extremely valuable terrain that has been sorely neglected until now.”—Zachary Lockman, author of Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism“This theoretically savvy, eye-opening tour through popular culture in and about Palestine and Israel confirms at once the inherent inseparability of culture/politics and the gripping mutuality of Israel/Palestine.”—Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt"[P]rovocative. . . . [T]he essays in this volume . . . imaginatively deconstruct aspects of popular culture still seeping across the walls erected through this long and intractable conflict." -- Donna Robinson Divine * Digest of Middle East Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: Popular Culture, Transnationality, and Radical History / Rebecca L. Stein and Ted Swedenburg 1 I. Historical Articulations Wasif Jawhariyyeh, Popular Music, and Early Modernity in Jerusalem / Salim Tamari 27 The Palestinian Press in Mandatory Jaffa: Advertising, Nationalism, and the Public Sphere / Mark LeVine 51 Post-Zionism and Its Popular Cultures / Ilan Pappé 77 II. Cinemas and Cyberspaces Cross/Cast: Passing in Israeli and Palestinian Cinema / Carol Bardenstein 99 Virtual Nation: Palestinian Cyberculture in Lebanese Camps / Laleh Khalili 126 Is There a Palestinian National Cinema?: The National and Transnational in Palestinian Film Production / Livia Alexander 150 III. The Politics of Music Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music / Joseph Massad 175 Dueling Nativities: Zehava Ben Sings Umm Kulthum / Amy Horowitz 202 Against Hybridity: The Case of Enrico Macias/Gaston Chrenassia / Ted Swedenburg 231 IV. Regional and Global Circuits "First Contact" and Other Israeli Fictions: Tourism, Globalization, and the Middle East Peace Process / Rebecca L. Stein 259 Prophecy, Politics, and the Popular: The Left Behind Series and Christian Evangelicalism's New World Order / Melani McAlister 288 Telling Stories in Palestine: Comix Understanding and Narratives of Palestine-Israel / Mary Layoun 313 Sentimentality and Redemption: The Rhetoric of Egyptian Pop Culture Intifada Solidarity / Elliott Cola 338 Bibliography 365 Contributors 397 Index 401

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Book SynopsisCalendar art appears in all manner of contexts in India: in chic elite living rooms, middle-class kitchens, urban slums, and village huts. This book examines the power that calendar art wields in Indian mass culture, arguing that its meanings derive as much from the production and circulation of the images as from their visual features.Trade Review“[A] world full of surprising diversity, economic ingenuity, and artistic acumen both from the author and her subject.” - Stefaan Van Ryssen, Leonardo“[T]here is no doubt that the author has written a most interesting, illuminative and valuable book on the calendar art of India, which is bound to serve as an authoritative source of reference to scholars and lay people alike for a long time to come.” - Singaravelu Sachithanantham, Asian Anthropology“Gods in the Bazaar is a rich and sophisticated treatment of visual culture in India. . . . Through close reading and ethnographic exploration, Jain provides a compelling account of the way in which these images permeate everyday life and animate the meaning of modernity in postcolonial India. . . . Jain makes an exemplary contribution to the scholarship on how popular art forms intertwine with quotidian practices and gain both meaning and value across communities and over time. . . . Kajri Jain’s book is replete with beautiful collection of images ranging from gods and goddesses, to divine babies, to national icons.” - Radha S. Hegde, Anthropological Quarterly“Jain is thoroughly engaged in the literatures of South Asian art history, history, and anthropology, and she makes sustained interventions in religious studies. Her book should command the attention of scholars in all of those disciplines and would be of use in both undergraduate and graduate classes studying modern South Asia. . . . [T]he strength of Jain’s account argues forcefully that an understanding of Indian visual culture is essential to an understanding of Indian public culture as a whole.” - Karin Zitzewitz, Journal of Asian Studies“Gods in the Bazaar is replete with glorious color illustrations, providing a feast for a reader’s eyes and much material for thought. . . . Jain is to be commended for her meticulous research and provocative insights, which mark this study of bazaar arts.” - Joanna Kirkpatrick, Visual Anthropology“This book is groundbreaking for modern Indian visual culture.” - Ajay Sinha, Art History“A virtuoso examination of the ‘luminous banality’ of calendar art. In mapping the moral economy of bazaar Hinduism, it provides a history of much of twentieth-century India and predicts much of what might happen in the present century.”—Christopher Pinney, author of “Photos of the Gods”: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India“In this groundbreaking book, Kajri Jain analyzes the ‘frames of value’ surrounding the contemporary Indian genre of mass-produced prints often known as bazaar art, ‘lurid, pungent, frequently tatty’ colored images of gods displayed on calendars. Recognizing that the value of these printed images to their viewers far exceeds their literal material value or the value that we might be tempted to assign to them in artistic terms, in a rich and vivid analysis based on firsthand research in the calendar-art industry Jain deals with their many values—social, political, religious, aesthetic, historical, affective, and libidinal. Gods in the Bazaar makes a significant theoretical contribution to globalizing our notion of aesthetic experience; in the sensuous and sacred economies of calendar art, what appears to be lurid and tatty can also be moving, precious, and exciting. Jain’s deft weaving of art history, aesthetics, anthropology, and the study of popular visual culture is a tour de force and deserves a wide readership among students of all image-making traditions around the world.”—Whitney Davis, Professor of History and Theory of Ancient and Modern Art, University of California, Berkeley“Gods in the Bazaar is replete with glorious color illustrations, providing a feast for a reader’s eyes and much material for thought. . . . Jain is to be commended for her meticulous research and provocative insights, which mark this study of bazaar arts.” -- Joanna Kirkpatrick * Visual Anthropology *“Gods in the Bazaar is a rich and sophisticated treatment of visual culture in India. . . . Through close reading and ethnographic exploration, Jain provides a compelling account of the way in which these images permeate everyday life and animate the meaning of modernity in postcolonial India. . . . Jain makes an exemplary contribution to the scholarship on how popular art forms intertwine with quotidian practices and gain both meaning and value across communities and over time. . . . Kajri Jain’s book is replete with beautiful collection of images ranging from gods and goddesses, to divine babies, to national icons.” -- Radha S. Hegde * Anthropological Quarterly *“[A] world full of surprising diversity, economic ingenuity, and artistic acumen both from the author and her subject.” -- Stefaan Van Ryssen * Leonardo Reviews *“[T]here is no doubt that the author has written a most interesting, illuminative and valuable book on the calendar art of India, which is bound to serve as an authoritative source of reference to scholars and lay people alike for a long time to come.” -- Singaravelu Sachithanantham * Asian Anthropology *“Jain is thoroughly engaged in the literatures of South Asian art history, history, and anthropology, and she makes sustained interventions in religious studies. Her book should command the attention of scholars in all of those disciplines and would be of use in both undergraduate and graduate classes studying modern South Asia. . . . [T]he strength of Jain’s account argues forcefully that an understanding of Indian visual culture is essential to an understanding of Indian public culture as a whole.” -- Karin Zitzewitz * Journal of Asian Studies *Table of ContentsNotes on Style vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction: Calendar Art as an Object of Knowledge 1 Part 1. Genealogy 1. Vernacularizing Capitalism: Sivakasi and Its Circuits 31 2. When the Gods Go to Market 77 3. Naturalizing the Popular 115 Part 2. Economy 4. The Sacred Icon in the Age of the Work of Art and Mechanical Reproduction 171 5. The Circulation of Images and the Embodiment of Value 217 Part 3. Efficacy 6. The Efficacious Image and the Sacralization of Modernity 269 7. Flexing the Canon 315 Conclusion 355 Notes 375 Works Cited 409 Index 427

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Book SynopsisA look at how technology and literary, visual, and consumer cultures have combined over the past two decades to transform a once solitary, print-based experience into an exuberantly social activity.Trade Review“In this lively, always insightful but never predictable book, Jim Collins claims that literary culture is alive and well today, but that to understand it we must also understand the variety of institutions and technologies that house and drive it, its storage and delivery systems, and its new forms of connoisseurship. He makes us think about what it means to love literature, and how a cultural activity comes to be enjoyed as popular culture.”—Linda Hutcheon, author of A Theory of Adaptation“Bring on the Books for Everybody is a lively and entertaining assault on some widely held shibboleths about popular culture. . . . It is salutary to read a work that takes the ordinary reader seriously while engaging in literary criticism.” -- Andrew Hadfield * TLS *“An extraordinary book about books. . . . This book is full of surprises, from a deft analysis of the true cultural significance of online reader reviews to a fresh look at how an explosion of literary reading has overtaken us from the US to the UK, via Canada, and back again, through the proliferation of book clubs, book superstores, e-retailers, literary festivals, film adaptations etc. Anyone who feels literary culture is threatened by the rise of the digital should read this book; our literary culture is on the cusp of a digital golden age.” -- Kate Pullinger * Globe and Mail *“This is a book about why books matter. It is written in a way that offers a masterclass for researchers in constructing scholarly monographs that are accessible, quirky, different and defiant. To use an Australianism, this book ’issa bloody beaudy.’ Buy it. Borrow it. Download it. Now. It is a book that we will remember where we were when we we first read it. This is a game-changer for popular cultural studies, media studies and the new humanities.” -- Tara Brabazon * Times Higher Education *“For those who wonder why they read what they do, for writers who want to know how to cater to an audience, for book marketers who want to know how to reach consumers, for everybody wanting an up-to-date and insightful take on contemporary American culture—bring on this book.” -- Janelle Adsit * Foreword Reviews *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: Digital Books, Beach Chairs, and Popular Literary Culture 1 Part I. The New Infrastructure of Reading: Sites, Delivery Systems, Authorities 1. The End of Civilization (or at Least Civilized Reading) as You Know It: Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, and Self-Cultivation 39 2. Book Clubs, Book Lust, and National Librarians: Literary Connoisseurship as Popular Entertainment 80 Part II. The Literary Experience in Visual Cultures 3. The Movie Was Better: The Rise of the Cine-Literary 117 4. "Miramaxing": Beyond Mere Adaptation 141 Part III. Popular Literary Fiction 5. Sex and the Post-Literary City 183 6. The Devoutly Literary Bestseller 221 Bibliography 267 Index 271

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Book SynopsisThis collection brings together cultural studies and pop music accounts of metal around the world, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Nepal, Brazil, Malta, Slovenia, China, Japan, Norway, Israel, and Easter Island. The volume is divided into sections covering the broader topics of gender, nation, racism, the music industry, and global and local perspectives.Trade Review“This is a timely collection, as recent books and films about punk and metal in the Middle East and South Asia shed light on a worldwide audience. Ethnomusicology collections and students of popular culture take note.” - Ed Graves, Library Journal“[I]f you are interested in Metal in Japan, there is something here for you. If you are into Sepultura there is something here for you. If you like Kiss and Zeppelin, we got ya covered. Don't think of this book as homework, think of it as a collection of Metal Essays Greatest Hits, with a bonus track being the Afterword by Robert Wasler, author of 2001’s, Running with the Devil. . . . I believe the editors and authors can all be proud of this monumental work. . . . Me like!” - Josh Wood, Metal Rules“Metal Rules the Globe is incredibly diverse. It is comprehensive and covers the effect metal has had worldwide, the ways in which unique cultures and subgenres have utilized heavy metal to make it achieve their own goals, and how it is reflected in their own struggles and lives. The authors are a range of academics from around the world. A number of them are also heavy metal musicians. It’s safe to say that all of them are fans of the music. Even though the text may be academic, beneath a number of the chapters you can tell there are some serious fanboys and girls, which is pretty awesome.” - Kurt Morris, Razorcake“I would recommend this book highly to ethnomusicologists, popular culture scholars, and social scientists interested heavy metal music. . . . [M]ost of the articles are written in such a way that they present and embrace the historical depth of their subjects in such a way that a fairly educated reader would still find the book interesting. Many anthropology professors assign a general reading list for introductory courses. This book is well suited for such practices because it might provide a disinterested student a chance to apply anthropology to something they already enjoy.” - Troy Belford, Anthropology Review Database“Metal Rules the Globe is a groundbreaking work for the field of metal studies, demonstrating through a wide selection of case studies how metal fans and musicians make meaning and offer social critique in the loci of global/local tensions resulting from globalization. . . . The editors have synthesized decades’ worth of theory with a survey of the global field of metal studies today, thus making this volume a must-read for any scholar of metal.” - Lauren Welker, Journal of Folklore Research“Metal Rules the Globe will surely join the ranks of Robert Walser’s Running with the Devil and Deena Weinstein’s Heavy Metal as one of the classics of heavy metal scholarship. A fascinating and valuable read!”—Sam Dunn, director of Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and Global Metal“The authors stoke the flames of heavy metal high and wide as the united forces of fans, bands, and mediators mount local-to-global resistance against the contradictory claims on identity, economy, history, and society. Valiant against anomie, disempowerment, and meaninglessness, we see an Alloy International Army standing proud and strong. A treasure chest of brutal truth for scholars, planners, metal maniacs, and globalization geeks from sea to toxic sea.”—Donna Gaines, author of Teenage Wasteland and A Misfit’s Manifesto“The contributors to Metal Rules the Globe venture far and wide, providing an engaging overview of heavy metal music across the world. This collection will find an international audience and become the standard reference on the global heavy metal scene.”—Will Straw, co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock“If you’re a fan of musicology, sociology, anthropology or ethnographic discourse, then Metal Rules the Globe is well worth exploring. It underscores just why metal is such a crucial medium of support and nourishment for millions of fans. It’s a fascinating insight into how metal constructs different notions of identity around the world, yet reinforces those all-important commonalities we share as fans.” -- Craig Hayes * PopMatters *“Metal Rules the Globe is a groundbreaking work for the field of metal studies, demonstrating through a wide selection of case studies how metal fans and musicians make meaning and offer social critique in the loci of global/local tensions resulting from globalization. . . . The editors have synthesized decades’ worth of theory with a survey of the global field of metal studies today, thus making this volume a must-read for any scholar of metal.” -- Lauren Welker * Journal of Folklore Research *“Metal Rules the Globe is incredibly diverse. It is comprehensive and covers the effect metal has had worldwide, the ways in which unique cultures and subgenres have utilized heavy metal to make it achieve their own goals, and how it is reflected in their own struggles and lives. The authors are a range of academics from around the world. A number of them are also heavy metal musicians. It’s safe to say that all of them are fans of the music. Even though the text may be academic, beneath a number of the chapters you can tell there are some serious fanboys and girls, which is pretty awesome.” -- Kurt Morris * Razorcake *“[I]f you are interested in Metal in Japan, there is something here for you. If you are into Sepultura there is something here for you. If you like Kiss and Zeppelin, we got ya covered. Don't think of this book as homework, think of it as a collection of Metal Essays Greatest Hits, with a bonus track being the Afterword by Robert Wasler, author of 2001’s, Running with the Devil. . . . I believe the editors and authors can all be proud of this monumental work. . . . Me like!” -- Josh Wood * Metal Rules *“I would recommend this book highly to ethnomusicologists, popular culture scholars, and social scientists interested heavy metal music. . . . [M]ost of the articles are written in such a way that they present and embrace the historical depth of their subjects in such a way that a fairly educated reader would still find the book interesting. Many anthropology professors assign a general reading list for introductory courses. This book is well suited for such practices because it might provide a disinterested student a chance to apply anthropology to something they already enjoy.” -- Troy Belford * Anthropology Review Database *“The book deserves a prominent place among the scholarship of heavy metal and readers interested in this musical genre will certainly have their knowledge enhanced by reading it. Readers may also be inspired (as I was) to seek out the music of some of the bands mentioned in the essays. . . . Metal Rules the Globe is an important book that makes valuable scholarly contributions to the literature about heavy metal and globalization.” -- Michael P. Marino * Popular Music and Society *“This is a timely collection, as recent books and films about punk and metal in the Middle East and South Asia shed light on a worldwide audience. Ethnomusicology collections and students of popular culture take note.” -- Ed Graves * Library Journal *“Given the range of perspectives, genres, and geographic locales, this book will appeal to a broad audience—academic and popular, graduate and undergraduate, metalhead and uninitiated alike—and provides both a journey and destination.” -- John Fenn * Western Folklore *“Metal Rules the Globe is set to become required reading for anybody interested in how heavy metal has turned from a minor taste in small post-industrial British and, later, American working class communities into a global phenomenon.” -- Gerd Bayer * Music and Letters *Table of ContentsPart 1. Introduction: The Global Conquest of an Outcast Genre Affective Overdrive, Scene Dynamics, and Identity in the Global Metal Scene / Jeremy Wallach, Harris M. Berger, and Paul D. Greene 3 The Globalization of Metal / Deena Weinstein 34 Part 2. Metal, Gender, Modernity "A Dream Return to Tang Dynasty": Masculinity, Male Camaraderie, and Chinese Heavy Metal in the 1990s / Cynthia P. Wong 63 Unleashed in the East: Metal Music, Masculinity, and "Malayness" in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore / Jeremy Wallach 86 Part 3. Metal and the Nation Electronic and Affective Overdrive: Tropes of Transgression in Nepal's Heavy Metal Scene / Paul D. Greene 109 Otherwise National: Locality and Power in the Art of Sepultura / Idelber Avelar 135 Part 4. Metal and Extremist Ideologies The Marketing of Anglo-Identity in the North American Hatecore Metal Industry / Sharon Hochhauser 161 Musical Style, Ideology, and Mythology in Norwegian Black Metal / Ross Hagen 180 "You Are from Israel and That is Enough to Hate You Forever": Racism, Globalization, and Play within the Global Extreme Metal Scene / Keith Kahn-Harris 200 Part 5. Metal and the Music Industry Arenas of the Imagination: Global Tours and the Heavy Metal Concert in the 1970s / Steve Waksman 227 Thunder in the Far East: The Heavy Metal Industry in 1990s Japan / Kei Kawano and Shuhei Hosokawa 247 Part 6. Small Nation/Small Scene Case Studies Metal in a Micro Island State: An Insider's Perspective / Albert Bell 271 Noisy Crossroads: Metal Scenes in Slovenia / Rajko Muršic 294 Nako: The Metal in the Marrow of Easter Island Music / Dan Bendrups 313 Afterword / Robert Walser 333 Acknowledgments 337 Works Cited 339 Contributors 367 Index 371

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Book SynopsisA history of postcolonial state power, the cultural politics of youth and gender, and global visions of modern style in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania during the 1960s and early 1970s.Trade Review“Andrew Ivaska brings historical depth and nuance to an inherently fascinating subject: cultural politics in early postcolonial Africa. His original, conceptually sophisticated chronicle of the heated cultural debates that took place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, during the 1960s demonstrates a masterful grasp of comparative scholarship on popular culture, modernity, and globalization.”—Lynn M. Thomas, author of Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction, and the State in Kenya“Cultured States is an enormous contribution to scholarship on the cultural politics of postcolonial East Africa. It is filled with rich and wonderful insights into youth, fashion, and the political culture of the 1960s.”—Luise White, author of Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa“Andrew Ivaska has written a highly effective monograph that explores how state ideology, popular cultural practices, historical era, and emergent social structure intersected in postcolonial Tanzania.... Cultured States is a very good monograph full of valuable insights for scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates with an interest in cultural history, politics, anthropology, African studies, globalization, popular culture, and postcolonial studies.” -- Anne S. Lewinson * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“Andrew Ivaska’s book may stand as a pioneering work in the historiography of postcolonial Africa. In its finely textured depictions of the distinctive cultural imaginaries fueling official and unofficial visions of nation building and citizenship in postindependence Tanzania, the book offers compelling material for broader studies in comparative nationalisms worldwide. The same can be said of its potential contributions to comparative studies of the cosmopolitan sensibilities and social movements of the global 1960s.” -- Jay Straker * American Historical Review *“Andrew Ivaska’s fascinating book explores the raucous and hotly contested cultural politics of 1960s Dar es Salaam, showing how debates over national culture were simultaneously critical public discussions about changing gender roles, intergenerational tensions and growing material inequalities – all of which were visible in the public spaces of Tanzania’s rapidly expanding capital city…. Cultured States will surely attract a wide readership in African studies, but it merits an audience beyond this as well, in areas including urban studies, the global history of the 1960s and postcolonial studies.” -- Emily Callaci * Social History *“Cultured States is a welcome contribution to the growing field of histories that explore cultural politics in the decades immediately following decolonization… This book should be extremely effective in graduate and upper-level undergraduate classrooms. It is well-organized, explores theoretically complex issues in clear language, and is very entertaining. Ivaska carefully places the study within the larger body of literature on youth culture and gender debates in the global 1960s. He succeeds in showing the richness and complexity in Tanzanian conflicts over socialism, culture, and young people.” -- Jeremy Rich * Canadian Journal of History *“On the whole, Andrew Ivaska’s Cultured States is a well-written book that documents a fascinating historical period and offers significant theoretical insights.” -- Daniel Mains * American Ethnologist *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Postcolonial Public Culture in Sixties Times 1 1. National Culture and Its Others in a Cosmopolitan Capital 37 2. "The Age of Minis": Secretaries, City Girls, and Masculinity Downtown 86 3. Of Students, 'Nizers, and Comrades: Youth, Internationalism, and the University College, Dar es Salaam 124 4. "Marriage Goes Metric": Negotiating Gender, Generation, and Wealth in a Changing Capital 166 Conclusion 206 Notes 219 Bibliography 253 Index 271

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Book SynopsisA history of postcolonial state power, the cultural politics of youth and gender, and global visions of modern style in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania during the 1960s and early 1970s.Trade Review“Andrew Ivaska brings historical depth and nuance to an inherently fascinating subject: cultural politics in early postcolonial Africa. His original, conceptually sophisticated chronicle of the heated cultural debates that took place in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, during the 1960s demonstrates a masterful grasp of comparative scholarship on popular culture, modernity, and globalization.”—Lynn M. Thomas, author of Politics of the Womb: Women, Reproduction, and the State in Kenya“Cultured States is an enormous contribution to scholarship on the cultural politics of postcolonial East Africa. It is filled with rich and wonderful insights into youth, fashion, and the political culture of the 1960s.”—Luise White, author of Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa“Andrew Ivaska has written a highly effective monograph that explores how state ideology, popular cultural practices, historical era, and emergent social structure intersected in postcolonial Tanzania.... Cultured States is a very good monograph full of valuable insights for scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates with an interest in cultural history, politics, anthropology, African studies, globalization, popular culture, and postcolonial studies.” -- Anne S. Lewinson * International Journal of African Historical Studies *“Andrew Ivaska’s book may stand as a pioneering work in the historiography of postcolonial Africa. In its finely textured depictions of the distinctive cultural imaginaries fueling official and unofficial visions of nation building and citizenship in postindependence Tanzania, the book offers compelling material for broader studies in comparative nationalisms worldwide. The same can be said of its potential contributions to comparative studies of the cosmopolitan sensibilities and social movements of the global 1960s.” -- Jay Straker * American Historical Review *“Andrew Ivaska’s fascinating book explores the raucous and hotly contested cultural politics of 1960s Dar es Salaam, showing how debates over national culture were simultaneously critical public discussions about changing gender roles, intergenerational tensions and growing material inequalities – all of which were visible in the public spaces of Tanzania’s rapidly expanding capital city…. Cultured States will surely attract a wide readership in African studies, but it merits an audience beyond this as well, in areas including urban studies, the global history of the 1960s and postcolonial studies.” -- Emily Callaci * Social History *“Cultured States is a welcome contribution to the growing field of histories that explore cultural politics in the decades immediately following decolonization… This book should be extremely effective in graduate and upper-level undergraduate classrooms. It is well-organized, explores theoretically complex issues in clear language, and is very entertaining. Ivaska carefully places the study within the larger body of literature on youth culture and gender debates in the global 1960s. He succeeds in showing the richness and complexity in Tanzanian conflicts over socialism, culture, and young people.” -- Jeremy Rich * Canadian Journal of History *“On the whole, Andrew Ivaska’s Cultured States is a well-written book that documents a fascinating historical period and offers significant theoretical insights.” -- Daniel Mains * American Ethnologist *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Postcolonial Public Culture in Sixties Times 1 1. National Culture and Its Others in a Cosmopolitan Capital 37 2. "The Age of Minis": Secretaries, City Girls, and Masculinity Downtown 86 3. Of Students, 'Nizers, and Comrades: Youth, Internationalism, and the University College, Dar es Salaam 124 4. "Marriage Goes Metric": Negotiating Gender, Generation, and Wealth in a Changing Capital 166 Conclusion 206 Notes 219 Bibliography 253 Index 271

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Book SynopsisA collection of essays exploring Thomas Kinkades career, his artistic production, and its impact on contemporary art as part of the broader history of American visual culture.Trade Review“At last, a thoughtful book on Thomas Kinkade. This is much more than a case of visual studies replacing art history with social and economic analyses: the contributors wrestle with value, quality, irony, self-reflexivity, aesthetics, taste, complexity, class, religion, nostalgia, and kitsch. Despite what several authors argue or hope, this excellent book implies Kinkade is very much a part of contemporary fine art: he troubles the discourses of art history, art theory, and visual studies in just the way an exemplary artist should.”—James Elkins, author of On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art“This excellent anthology is a significant contribution to scholarship at the interstices of art practice, art theory, and popular culture. It is an erudite book that brings together diverse approaches to Thomas Kinkade’s work and ‘culture,’ yet maintains a surprisingly even quality of thought and writing.”—Maria Elena Buszek, author of Pin-Up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture“[A] wide-ranging, incisive interpretation of one of the most popular yet polarizing artists of our time. Whatever you may know or think about Kinkade, this book will press you to consider his work and the significance of its popularity in new ways.” -- Michael Clapper * AHAA Reviews *“Edited by art historian Alexis L. Boylan and published by a major university press, this book challenges Kinkade’s exclusion from the art world’s rarefied discourses. In so doing, it surely counts as something of an event. . . . Perhaps the primary benefit of this book lies in the skill with which it teases out the vagaries of the art world’s love-hate affair with its own significant Other: mass culture.” -- Joachim Pissarro and David Carrier * Artforum *“This collection illuminates controversial currents in the contemporary art world and consumer culture. Though focused on a single artist, the debates over what constitutes art in a postmodern world, where art ends and commerce begins, the ubiquity of branding and marketing; and the social politics of cultural production and consumption transcend Kinkade’s work and can be used to analyse other developments in contemporary society.” -- Judith R. Halasz * Visual Studies *“Whether you love or hate ‘the painter of light,’ this collection of essays will both affirm your view and challenge it. . . . Readable yet scholarly, this book bridges the same sectors Kinkade’s work does, and is deserving of a broad audience. Highly recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers.” -- E. K. Mix * Choice *Table of ContentsIllustrations vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction / Alexis L. Boylan 1 Thomas Kinkade and the History of Protestant Visual Culture in America / David Morgan 29 Painter of the Right: Thomas Kinkade's Political Art / Micki McElya 54 God in the Retails: Thomas Kinkade and Market Piety / Seth Feman 81 Brand-Name Living from the Painter of Light / Karal Ann Marling 107 Purchasing Paradise: Nostalgic Longing and the Painter of Light / Andrea Wolk Rager 124 Repetition, Exclusion, and the Urbanism of Nostalgia: The Architecture of Thomas Kinkade / Christopher E. M. Pearson 143 "A Temple Next Door": The Thomas Kinkade Museum and Cultural Center / Julia Alderson 165 Thomas Kinkade's Heaven on Earth / Jeffrey Vallance 191 Manufacturing "Masterpieces" for the Market: Thomas Kinkade and the Rhetoric of High Art / Monica Kjellman-Chapin 206 Art Ethics: Thomas Kinkade and Contemporary Art / Anna Brzyski 238 Bibliography 259 Contributors 275 Index 277

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the impact of media representations of violence during the Vietnam War on people in the U.S., specifically how images of violence done to and by the Vietnamese were traumatic in ways that deeply affected the American psyche.Trade Review“The Oriental Obscene is fresh, original, scrupulously researched, and tightly argued. Sylvia Shin Huey Chong uses the psychoanalytic categories of trauma, the primal scene, and fantasy, relying centrally on the work of Jean Laplanche. She quite rightly contends that the theories of Laplanche and Deleuze can enrich each other, and she demonstrates how this works as she rethinks representations of the Vietnam War in visual media. Her book will attract a broad interdisciplinary audience, including scholars of film and media, cultural studies, Asian American studies, and critical race theory.”—Sharon Willis, author of High Contrast: Race and Gender in Contemporary Hollywood Film“Sylvia Shin Huey Chong has located the Vietnam War as the constitutive trauma of modern American nationhood, one that is particularly attached to a visuality of violence. She argues, moreover, that this trauma also serves as something of a primal scene around which whole sets of gendered and racialized positions are generated and then solidified in the public spheres of American politics and sociality. The Oriental Obscene offers a fascinating read for anyone interested in the Vietnam War, American racial politics, popular culture, and the making and endurance of American Orientalism.”—Anne Anlin Cheng, Princeton University“Chong makes an intriguing contribution to the scholarly conversation about Vietnam War imagery with her analysis of the rise in popularity of martial arts films in the US…” -- Heather Stur * Journal of American Studies *“Taken in the context of scholarly investigations into representations of the Vietnam War, Chong’s work is a thoughtful and important contribution to the canon. However, as an exploration of otherness and the construction of racial identities, The Oriental Obscene also provides a valuable resource to broader areas of research in film and media theory, cultural studies and other critical approaches to race.” -- Josh Nelson * Screening the Past *“Chong's enlightening, comprehensive study serves as an excellent addition to Asian American and media studies.... Highly recommended.” -- A.F. Winstead * Choice *“This is an evocative study…. [A] masterful and courageous study in which the author weaves multiple theoretical strands into an integrated whole to pierce the pornographic undertones beneath the consumption of images of violence…. [T]here is no hint of exploitation or sensationalism, only a compelling argument for how the state can be imposed upon the human condition.” -- Stella Coram * Ethnic and Racial Studies *“Chong has written a detailed and well-argued study of the portrayal of Asians in American media and society as a response to the Vietnam War. She takes the time to explain her use of sometimes difficult literary and psychoanalytical theory, making this text accessible to enthusiasts as well as academics.” -- Patrick Condiffe * Media International Australia *“Chong’s book is a thoughtful consideration of complex, contradictory meanings in the visual archive of the Vietnam War. Her argument usefully delineates a cultural logic of race and the oriental from before and during its rescripting by the post-1965 generation of immigrants and Asian American cultural politics.” -- Paul Lai * Journal of Asian American Studies *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Notes on Terminology, Proper Names, and Film Titles ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction. Specters of Vietnam 1 1. Bringing the War Home: Spectacles of Violence and Rebellion in the American 1968 33 2. Reporting the War: Ethical Crises of Action in the Movement-Image of Vietnam 75 3. Restaging the War: Fantasizing Defeat in Hollywood's Vietnam 127 4. Kung Fu Fighting: Pacifying and Mastering the Martial Body 173 5. Being Bruce Lee: Death and the Limits of the Movement-Image of Martial Arts 209 Conclusion. Returning to 'Nam: The Vietnam Veteran's Orientalized Body 249 Notes 283 Bibliography 325 Index 353

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Book SynopsisAffirmative Reaction explores the cultural politics of heteronormative white masculine privilege in the United States.Trade Review“Affirmative Reaction is a remarkable transvaluation of the terms by which we currently understand post-Fordist white masculinist hegemony. Not an unmarked norm but a particularized, and particularly abject, new identity category, white maleness is here submitted to fresh, riveting, lucid, and eye-opening analysis. An exemplary account of recent U.S. mediascapes.”—Eric Lott, author of The Disappearing Liberal Intellectual“In analyses that move deftly across economic, political, and affective registers, Hamilton Carroll draws out the dynamics of early-twenty-first-century backlash that have produced the popularity of texts as different as Brokeback Mountain and American Chopper, and draws our attention to the nuances to be found in unexpected places such as comic-book responses to 9/11. Affirmative Reaction can be read as a set of smart, related essays on a common theme, but it is also a tight, cohesive argument about recent developments in white U.S. masculinity. It will be welcomed by specialists in cultural studies, film studies, and gender studies, and it intervenes in the research conversation about the constitution of whiteness that continues in and across several fields and disciplines.”—Glenn Hendler, Director of the American Studies Program, Fordham University“Affirmative Reaction does a good job of critiquing privileged media archetypes. . . . This book will help forward an important dialogue about the contemporary status of white ethnicity, the masculinisation of class and nation, and the development of identity politics in the United States. . . .” -- Timothy Laurie * Critical Race and Whiteness Studies *“Carroll is at his best when he is drawing out the substance of his multifarious analyses in order to do some theory making about contemporary white masculinity. The most powerful moments of critical insight come when he skillfully jumps from Keifer Sutherland’s Jack Bauer in 24 to George W. Bush’s speeches on the War on Terror to Judith Butler and back to Bauer again, underscoring the connections between ideas that are neither obvious nor simple.” -- Patrick Ryan Grzanka * Men and Masculinities *“Carroll offers a theoretically sophisticated account of some novel recent manoeuvres of white masculine identity, which provides a powerful framework for the critical interrogation of the texts he explores, and many others.” -- James Zborowski * Journal of Gender Studies *“Carroll’s work makes a valuable contribution to literature on contemporary masculinity and its discontents. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.” -- D. E. Magill * Choice *“I found Carroll’s reading coherent, convincing and resonant in many respects with the ethnographies and qualitative interviewing projects on American whiteness with which I am more familiar. Addressing whiteness as contingent, heterogeneous and rooted in cultural, political and economic shifts is a project in which a number of scholars are already engaged, and Carroll’s text is a very welcome contribution to this field.” -- Steve Garner * Ethnic and Racial Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: White Masculinities and the Politics of Representation 1 Part I. 9-11/24-7Affective Time and the War on Terror 1. Jack Bauer's Extraordinary Rendition: Neoliberal Melodrama and the Ethics of Torture 27 2. Future Perfect: "Everyday Heroes" and the New Exceptionalism 49 Part II. Embodying DifferenceWhiteness, Class, and the Postindustrial Subject 3. Men's Soaps: Automotive Television Programming and Contemporary Working-Class Masculinities 77 4. "My Skin Is It Startin' to Work in My Benefit Now?": Eminem's White Trash Aesthetic 101 Part III. Daddy's HomeFamily Melodrama and the Fictions of State 5. The Fighting Irish: Ethnic Whiteness and Million Dollar Baby 131 6. Romancing the Nation: Family Melodrama and the Sentimental Logics of Neoliberalism 157 Notes 181 Bibliography 201 Index 213

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Book SynopsisA collection of essays considering how country music became "white," how that fictive racialization has been maintained, and how African American artists and fans have used country music to elaborate their own identities.Trade Review"Hidden in the Mix is a comprehensive and worthy addition to the canon of popular music history. It breaks new ground and digs deep. By looking at both historical traditions (the banjo, early blues-hillbilly music) and contemporary cultural phenomena (hick-hop and country pop), as well as African American artists past and present (Bill Livers, Ray Charles, Cowboy Troy), the book greatly expands our knowledge of this intriguing subject."—Holly George-Warren, author of Public Cowboy No. 1: The Life and Times of Gene Autry"Diane Pecknold's collection is profoundly important in implication and a long-awaited intervention in the country-music literature."—Aaron A. Fox, author of Real Country: Music and Language in Working-Class Culture“Diane Pecknold rounds up some of the better music writers in academia in order to put a light on country's many black roots and the country's unease with said roots. It's not perfect, but what's good here makes the collection indispensable.” -- RJ Smith * The Record, NPR *“Country music is white music. Its performers are white; its repertoire is white; its audience is white. That's the genre's image, anyway. But it's largely a myth, debunked decisively in Hidden in the Mix.” -- Noah Berlatsky * Chicago Reader *“A fascinating and long-overdue compendium of essays that shed new light on country music’s complex and diverse history.” -- Bill Baars * Library Journal *“Hidden in the Mix . .. steps in to set the record straight, within a dozen essays that tackle varied topics while persistently analyzing the racial history of country music and how it manifests itself, or is ignored, in the present – including in the works of country-music historians.” -- Dave Heaton * PopMatters *“While rich in detail and strong in opinions, these scholarly essays are nuanced and balanced. The writing quality is superb too…. Hidden in the Mix is an excellent contribution to country music scholarship.” -- B. Lee Coor * Popular Music and Society *"The collection helpfully analyzes the paradox that country music has been stereotypically framed as 'white music,' but a long tradition of black performers and fans exists. It uncovers the historical discourses that over time obscured country music’s multiracial origins and history." -- Leigh Edwards * Journal of American Culture *“This is a useful collection with an engaging interdisciplinary balance of focus and imagination…. [T]he book is on the whole accessible, fresh, and contemporary in its tone and synthesis. The non-music specialist as well as the music history insider should find much to appreciate.” -- Steven Garabedian * Journal of Southern History *“Hidden in the Mix is a worthwhile book that will appeal to the student of history, culture, music, and the South’s role in shaping American identity.” -- Barbara A. Baker * Alabama Review *“[S]imply the best collection of academic essays about popular music I have read in years. … When it comes to proving the centrality of American music to the study of American history, Hidden in the Mix has few recent equals.” -- Harvey G. Cohen * Journal of American Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Country Music and Racial Formation / Diane Pecknold 1 Part One. Playing in the Dark 1. Black Hillbillies: African American Musicians on Old-Time Records, 1924–1932 / Patrick Huber 19 2. Making Country Modern: The Legacy of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music / Diane Pecknold 82 3. Contested Origins: Arnold Schultz and the Music of Western Kentucky / Erika Brady 100 4. Fiddling with Race Relations in Rural Kentucky: The Life, Times, and Contested Identity of Fiddlin' Bill Livers / Jeffrey A. Keith 119 Part Two. New Antiphonies 5. Why African Americans Put the Banjo Down / Tony Thomas 143 6. Old-Time Country Music in North Carolina and Virginia: The 1970s and 1980s / Kip Lornell 171 7. "The South's Gonna Do It Again": Changing Conceptions of the Use of "Country" Music in the Albums of Al Green / Michael Awkward 191 8. Dancing the Habanera Beats (in Country Music): The Creole-Country Two-Step in St. Lucia and Its Diaspora / Jerry Wever 204 9. Playing Chicken with the Train: Cowboy Troy's Hick-Hop and the Transracial Country West / Adam Gussow 234 10. If Only They Could Read between the Lines: Alice Randall and the Integration of Country Music / Barbara Ching 263 11. You're My Soul Song: How Southern Soul Changed Country Music / Charles L. Hughes 283 12. What's Syd Got to Do with It? King Records, Henry Glover, and the Complex Achievement of Crossover / David Sanjek 306 Bibliography 339 Contributors 361 Index 365

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Book SynopsisIn this sophisticated examination of the HBO serial drama that aired from 2002 until 2008, Linda Williams, a leading film scholar and authority on the interplay between film, melodrama, and issues of race, suggests what exactly it is that makes The Wire so good. She argues that its narrative power derives from its genre, popular melodrama.Trade Review"On the Wire is a readable, rigorously argued account of HBO’s seminal series. . . . Williams is noted for being a top scholar in film and media studies, but On the Wire demonstrates that above all else she is a passionate fan of the series. In order to explain why she loves it so much, and why it has impacted American culture with such force, she’s written a must-read book for everyone who believes that The Wire is life-changing fiction of the highest order." -- Jon Lisi * PopMatters *"Linda Williams’s book revolutionizes the ways we approach the series. Hers is a provocative, productive analysis that makes an essential contribution to the sociology of television: not only how to think of television as social force but its own ability to constitute sociological investigation." -- Dana Polan * Film Quarterly *“By tying The Wire’s forcefulness to its televisual and melodramatic nature, On The Wire reveals that however exceptional, this show can also be a model. As such, this book modestly saves the series from monumentality.” -- Nathan Holmes * Critical Inquiry *"Williams’ s study... provides a view of The Wire that is often illuminating and surprising…" -- Stanley Corkin * Journal of American Studies *“As an avid fan of the series The Wire, Linda Williams’s book was a thoroughly interesting read. … In each section, the author skillfully weaves the storyline from episodes into her argument in a believable and defensible fashion. … Williams’s volume offers a unique perspective on a beloved series.” -- Amy Muckleroy Carwile * Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly *“On The Wire is an ambitious study that makes an original, compelling argument about a series on which much has already been written. The questions Williams sets out in the early part of her monograph both pay tribute to The Wire and make clear that she is willing to probe the assumptions often made about it. ...Pushing back against the critical consensus, On The Wire is not just an original study of its chosen series but also a model for how we should think about contemporary television more generally.” -- George Potts * Critical Quarterly *“Williams’s On The Wire is a fascinating text. Whether she is lauding the series for its capacity to ruffle certain cinematic conventions and assumptions about race and class or criticizing the show for its diminished gender politics (e.g., blaming the single black mother), her analysis is coherent, trenchant, and provocative. … For those interested in the series and those interested more generally in film and media studies, American culture, and the intersection of race and class, On The Wire will be an enjoyable and provocative read.” -- Joseph Winters * African American Review *“On The Wire is not only an important work for any study of The Wire, but is also an important offering for television scholarship. Furthermore, On The Wire provides strong analysis of the role of melodrama in society, and establishes an illuminating vocabulary for depictions of race in popular culture.” -- Alex Moran * 49th Parallel *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Part I. World Enough and Time: The Genesis and Genius of The Wire 1. Ethnographic Imagination: From Journalism to Television Serial 11 2. Serial Television's World and Time: The Importance of the "Part" 37 Part II. Justice in The Wire: Tragedy, Realism, and Melodrama 3. "Classical" Tragedy, or . . . 79 4. Realistic, Modern Serial Melodrama 107 Part III. Surveillance, Schoolin', and Race 5. Hard Eyes / Soft Eyes: Surveillance and Schoolin' 139 6. Feeling Race: The Wire and the American Melodrama of Black and White 173 Conclusion: Home Sweet Baltimore 211 Notes 223 Bibliography 247 Index 255

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Book SynopsisTania Lewis, Fran Martin, and Wanning Sun analyze the complex social and cultural significance of lifestyle television programming in China, India, Taiwan, and Singapore, showing how it adds insight into late Asian modernity, media cultures, and broad shifts in the nature of private life, identity, citizenship, and social engagement.Trade Review"Telemodernities is a valuable addition to a growing body of scholarship.... A fascinatingly detailed comparative study of lifestyle television in China, India, and Taiwan, the book seeks to decenter the normative modernity of the West, interrogating instead the role television plays in constituting and interpreting multiple 'modernities.'" -- Tilottama Karlekar * Feminist Media Studies *"The scope of the book is expansive, covering all three aspects of media studies: production, content, and audience analysis. The thick description helps immensely with the goal of showing how modernities are interpreted, negotiated, and confronted in nuanced ways...." -- Yang Bai * International Journal of Communication *"[Telemodernities] provides a convincing comparative and nuanced analysis of how lifestyle TV filters conflicting ideologies. . . . This book offers groundbreaking comparative work on South Asian television." -- Daniel Keyes * Critical Studies in Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: Telemodernities 1 1. Lifestyle Television in Context: Media Industries, Cultural Economies, and Genre Flows 25 2. Local versus Metropolitan Television in China: Stratification of Needs, Taste, and Spatial Imagination 52 3. Here, There, and Everywhere: Mediascapes, Geographic Imaginaries, and Indian Television 82 4. Imagining Global Mobility: TLC Taiwan 106 5. Gurus, Babas, and Daren: Popular Experts on Chinese and Indian Advice TV 126 6. Magical Modernities: Spiritual Advice TV in India and Taiwan 157 7. Risky Romance: Navigating Late Modern Identities and Relationships on Chinese and Indian Lifestyle TV 196 8. A Self to Believe In: Negotiating Femininities in Sinophone Lifestyle Advice TV 222 Conclusion: Negotiating Modernities through Lifestyle Television 254 Notes 271 Works Cited 281 Index 305

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Book SynopsisTania Lewis, Fran Martin, and Wanning Sun analyze the complex social and cultural significance of lifestyle television programming in China, India, Taiwan, and Singapore, showing how it adds insight into late Asian modernity, media cultures, and broad shifts in the nature of private life, identity, citizenship, and social engagement.Trade Review"Telemodernities is a valuable addition to a growing body of scholarship.... A fascinatingly detailed comparative study of lifestyle television in China, India, and Taiwan, the book seeks to decenter the normative modernity of the West, interrogating instead the role television plays in constituting and interpreting multiple 'modernities.'" -- Tilottama Karlekar * Feminist Media Studies *"The scope of the book is expansive, covering all three aspects of media studies: production, content, and audience analysis. The thick description helps immensely with the goal of showing how modernities are interpreted, negotiated, and confronted in nuanced ways...." -- Yang Bai * International Journal of Communication *"[Telemodernities] provides a convincing comparative and nuanced analysis of how lifestyle TV filters conflicting ideologies. . . . This book offers groundbreaking comparative work on South Asian television." -- Daniel Keyes * Critical Studies in Television *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii Introduction: Telemodernities 1 1. Lifestyle Television in Context: Media Industries, Cultural Economies, and Genre Flows 25 2. Local versus Metropolitan Television in China: Stratification of Needs, Taste, and Spatial Imagination 52 3. Here, There, and Everywhere: Mediascapes, Geographic Imaginaries, and Indian Television 82 4. Imagining Global Mobility: TLC Taiwan 106 5. Gurus, Babas, and Daren: Popular Experts on Chinese and Indian Advice TV 126 6. Magical Modernities: Spiritual Advice TV in India and Taiwan 157 7. Risky Romance: Navigating Late Modern Identities and Relationships on Chinese and Indian Lifestyle TV 196 8. A Self to Believe In: Negotiating Femininities in Sinophone Lifestyle Advice TV 222 Conclusion: Negotiating Modernities through Lifestyle Television 254 Notes 271 Works Cited 281 Index 305

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Book SynopsisInto the Cosmos shows us the fascinating interplay of Soviet politics, science, and culture during the Khrushchev era, and how the space program became a binding force between these elements.

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Book SynopsisIn order to counter coercive and corruptive influences of academic commodification, the contributors consider alternatives to commodified research and offer practical recommendations for establishing appropriate research standards, methodologies and institutional arrangements, and a corresponding normative ethos.

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Book SynopsisThis study offers a critical examination of the work of Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Mexican-American brothers whose graphic novels are highly influential.

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Book SynopsisSunday dinners, basement kitchens, and backyard gardens are everyday cultural entities long associated with Italian Americans, yet the general perception of them remains superficial and stereotypical at best.Trade Review"The book is very pleasing and easy to read. Some essays, particularly those based on personal memoirs, are really moving and made me rethink in a more profound manner about deeply rooted behaviors." -Maria Kaliambou, Western Folklore "Sciorra's book conveys a strong sense of urgency to reexamine and re-think what we know about Italian Americans, while contributing to the legitimization of Italian-American folklore." -Modern Italy "It is rare to call a work of academic scholarship a page turner, but I think this collection is worthy of the honor... To put it bluntly, this collection is a joy to read." -- Stephen Olbrys Gencarella -Journal of Folklore Research

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"... a strong collection that will be useful not only to those interested in zombie films, but also more generally to anyone interested in the changes in the figure of the zombie over time and its post-human evolution." -Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts "Original and provocative essays that contribute significantly to the field of zombie studies." -- -Aviva Briefel Bowdoin College

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Book SynopsisThe zombie is ubiquitous in popular culture: from comic books to video games, to internet applications and homemade films, zombies are all around us. Investigating the zombie from an interdisciplinary perspective, with an emphasis on deep analytical engagement with diverse kinds of texts, Better Off Dead addresses some of the more unlikely venues where zombies are found while providing the reader with a classic overview of the zombie's folkloric and cinematic history. What has the zombie metaphor meant in the past? Why does it continue to be so prevalent in our culture? Where others have looked at the zombie as an allegory for humanity's inner machinations or claimed the zombie as capitalist critique, this collection seeks to provide an archaeology of the zombietracing its lineage from Haiti, mapping its various cultural transformations, and suggesting the post-humanist direction in which the zombie is ultimately heading. Approaching the zombie from many different points of view, tTrade Review"... a strong collection that will be useful not only to those interested in zombie films, but also more generally to anyone interested in the changes in the figure of the zombie over time and its post-human evolution." -Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts "Original and provocative essays that contribute significantly to the field of zombie studies." -- -Aviva Briefel Bowdoin College

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Marjorie Garber assembles witty, shrewd, and imaginative essays on interdisciplinary topics that range widely from Shakespeare to psychoanalysis, and the practice of higher education today." -Publishers Weekly "In this wonderful collection of what she modestly calls 'musings,' Marjorie Garber makes an irresistible case for the value of literary study and for herself as one of its great modern practitioners. The essays are brave in their commitments and brilliant in their execution. They are at once provocative and playful-and abidingly humane." -- -David Scott Kastan Yale UniversityTable of ContentsPreface: The Muses on Their Lunch Hour Acknowledgments 1. Asking Literary Questions 2. Ovid, Now and Then 3. Over the Influence 4. Fig Leaves 5. Baggage Screening 6. Identity Theft 7. Czech Mates: When Shakespeare Met Kafka 8. Occupy Shakespeare 9. Shakespeare 451 Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Marjorie Garber assembles witty, shrewd, and imaginative essays on interdisciplinary topics that range widely from Shakespeare to psychoanalysis, and the practice of higher education today." -Publishers Weekly "In this wonderful collection of what she modestly calls 'musings,' Marjorie Garber makes an irresistible case for the value of literary study and for herself as one of its great modern practitioners. The essays are brave in their commitments and brilliant in their execution. They are at once provocative and playful-and abidingly humane." -- -David Scott Kastan Yale UniversityTable of ContentsPreface: The Muses on Their Lunch Hour Acknowledgments 1. Asking Literary Questions 2. Ovid, Now and Then 3. Over the Influence 4. Fig Leaves 5. Baggage Screening 6. Identity Theft 7. Czech Mates: When Shakespeare Met Kafka 8. Occupy Shakespeare 9. Shakespeare 451 Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsForeword by Imre Szeman | vii Introduction | 1 1 Petroculture | 13 2 Big, Oily Dreams | 49 3 Attachment | 77 4 Quilting Point | 107 5 Petrotemporality | 139 6 Scenarios | 169 7 Excess | 185 8 The Beach | 211 Afterword by Mark Simpson | 239 Acknowledgments | 243 Notes | 247 Bibliography | 253

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Book SynopsisShojo manga are romance comics for teenage girls. Characterized by a very dense visual style, featuring flowery backgrounds and big-eyed, androgynous boys and girls, it is an extremely popular and prominent genre in Japan. Why is this genre so appealing? Where did it come from? Why do so many of the stories feature androgynous characters and homosexual romance? Passionate Friendship answers these questions by reviewing Japanese girlsâ print culture from its origins in 1920s and 1930s girlsâ literary magazines to the 1970s âœrevolutionâ shojo manga, when young women artists took over the genre. It looks at the narrative and aesthetic features of girlsâ literature and illustration across the twentieth century, both pre- and postwar, and discusses how these texts addressed and formed a reading community of girls, even as they were informed by competing political and social ideologies. The author traces the development of girlsâ culture in preâWorld War II magazines and links it to postw

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Book SynopsisProposes an anthropological concept of animation as a contrast and complement to performance: the idea that we construct social others by projecting parts of ourselves out into the world might prove useful for thinking about such topics as climate crisis, corporate branding, and social media.Trade ReviewIn this lively work, Teri Silvio uses Taiwanese material to theorize about everything from religion and puppetry to marketing and national identity. With the ang-a (an artificial humanoid figure that can be a deity or a doll) as her guiding metaphor, Silvio convincingly argues that the old "Age of Performance" has been giving way to an "Age of Animation." Rather than adopting or challenging prescribed roles in performative acts of identity formation, in the new Age of Animation people invest objects with vitality (as with puppets and figurines) and bring characters to life (as in cosplay). Puppets, Gods, and Brands is a relentlessly creative study with far-reaching implications for anthropology, religious studies, and East Asian cultural studies. Silvio challenges longstanding presuppositions about Japan’s dominance of the East Asian popular media space, overturns some widespread assumptions about how animation works as a technological process and as an imaginative act, and pokes holes in recent theories about animism and neoliberalism along the way. A fabulously provocative book. Teri Silvio’s book is an important and original tour-de-force of theorized ethnographic engagement. She convincingly argues that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift, which she calls the Age of Animation—a time of giving objects lives of their own, a widening of the sense of an agency heretofore jealously guarded as the purview of humans alone. Her book achieves anthropology’s Holy Grail: It makes surprising connections about the world around the reader, rendering legible, in new ways, aspects of it that she did not even know she did not understand. And this is accomplished via ethnography of a seemingly peripheral place—Taiwan—that proves to be deeply significant in our globalized world.

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Book SynopsisPart biography and part cultural analysis, this work sheds some light on the cultural icon of ""Uncle Walt"". It also digs deeply into Disney's private life, investigating his roles as husband, father, and brother and proving insights into his peculiar psyche.

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Book SynopsisThis study of literary and cinematic representations of brainwashing during the Cold War era reviews science fiction, Korean War fiction, and The Manchurian Candidate film. It explores how views on brainwashing changed from an external threat to American values to an internal threat against individual American liberties by the US government.

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Book SynopsisA collection of the music art created by Danny Garrett from the ’70s and ’80s in Austin, Texas. Describing the evolution of the Austin music poster, Garrett richly and poignantly details the history of the music, musicians, and venues that brought the surprising harmony of “the Austin sound” to a country otherwise polarized by antagonistic cultural, social, and political perspectives.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisAfrica Every Day presents an exuberant, thoughtful, and necessary counterpoint to the prevailing emphasis in introductory African studies classes on war, poverty, corruption, disease, and human rights violations on the continent. These challenges are real and deserve sustained attention, but this volume shows that adverse conditions do not prevent people from making music, falling in love, playing sports, participating in festivals, writing blogs, telling jokes, making videos, playing games, eating delicious food, and finding pleasure in their daily lives.Across seven sectionsCelebrations and Rites of Passage; Socializing and Friendship; Love, Sex, and Marriage; Sports and Recreation; Performance, Language, and Creativity; Technology and Media; and Labor and Livelihoodsthe accessible, multidisciplinary essays in Africa Every Day address these creative and dynamic elements of daily life, without romanticizing them. Ultimately, the book shows that forms of leisure and popular cuTrade Review“With its snapshots of a dazzling variety of everyday activities—sports, social media, music, moviegoing, sex and romance, and the use of public spaces are just a few—this bright and readable collection sets out to provide an antidote to the prevailing depiction of Africa as a scene of unmitigated deprivation, disorder, and despair. It will easily intrigue readers who are not African studies specialists, as well as Africanists in a wide range of disciplines (anthropology, politics, cultural studies, history, literature, development studies).”“Written clearly with a refreshing lack of academic rhetoric, these vignettes outline experiences of daily life relating to sports, media, friendship, love, and labor. A welcome contribution. Recommended." * Choice *

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Book SynopsisAnalyzes the circus and related spectacles in fin-de-siecle Paris, and how they were interpreted by print arts of the era

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Book SynopsisAn engaging look at the philosophical underpinnings of Earth''s Mightiest Heroes Avengers assemble! Tackling intriguing dilemmas and issues that no single great philosopher can withstand, this powerful book enlists the brainpower of an A-list team of history''s most prominent thinkers to explore the themes behind the action of Marvel Comics'' all-star superhero team. Arms you with new insights into the characters and themes of The Avengers Deepens your appreciation both of The Avengers comics and the Joss Whedon movie adaptation Answers the philosophical questions you''ve always had about Earth''s Mightiest Heroes, including: Can a reformed criminal become a superhero? Can an android love a human? If a hero beats his wife, is he still a hero? Helps you think differently about the members of the superhero teamCaptain America, Iron Man, Thor, and the others This thought-provoking book will help you understand Table of ContentsIntroduction: Earth’s Mightiest Philosophers 1 Part One What Would An Avenger Do? 1 Superhuman Ethics Class with the Avengers Prime 5 Mark D. White 2 Shining the Light on the Dark Avengers 18 Sarah Donovan and Nick Richardson 3 The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Family 28 Jason Southworth and Ruth Tallman Part Two Who Is An Avenger? 4 Superhero Identity: Case Studies in the Avengers 43 Stephen M. Nelson 5 I Am Made of Ink: She-Hulk and Metacomics 57 Roy T. Cook 6 The Self-Corruption of Norman Osborn: A Cautionary Tale 71 Robert Powell Part Three Should the Avengers Do More Than Avenge? 7 Forgivers Assemble! 83 Daniel P. Malloy 8 Gods, Beasts, and Political Animals: Why the Avengers Assemble 98 Tony Spanakos 9 Cap’s Kooky Quartet: Is Rehabilitation Possible? 113 Andrew Terjesen Part Four Do the Avengers Ever Go Too Far? 10 Fighting the Good Fight: Military Ethics and the Kree-Skrull War 131 Christopher Robichaud 11 Secrets and Lies: Compromising the Avengers’ Values for the Good of the World 142 Louis P. Melançon 12 The Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D.: The Problem with Proactive Superheroics 154 Arno Bogaerts Part Five What Kind of World Do The Avengers Live In? 13 Can Kang Kill His Past Self? The Paradox of Time Travel 171 Andrew Zimmerman Jones 14 “No Other Gods Before Me”: God, Ontology, and Ethics in the Avengers’ Universe 183 Adam Barkman 15 Love Avengers Style: Can an Android Love a Human? 194 Charles Klayman 16 The Way of the Arrow: Hawkeye Meets the Taoist Masters 204 Mark D. White Aooendix: Why Are There Four Volumes of Avengers? 217 Contributors: Avengers Academy 221

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Book SynopsisA threat to humanity portending the end of our species lurks in the cold recesses of space. Our only hope is an eleven-year-old boy.Table of ContentsIntroduction: What Is Ender’s Game? 1 Part One THIRD: The Making of an Impossible Child 7 1 “The Teachers Got Me Into This”: Educational Skirmishes … with a Pinch of Freedom 9 Cam Cobb 2 Illusions of Freedom, Tragedies of Fate: The Moral Development of Ender Wiggin 21 Jeremy Proulx 3 Xenocide’s Paradox: The Virtue of Being Ender 32 Jeff Ewing 4 Teaching to the Test: Constructing the Identity of a Space Commander 41 Chad William Timm Part Two GAME: Cooperation or Confrontation? 53 5 The Enemy’s Gate Is Down: Perspective, Empathy, and Game Theory 55 Andrew Zimmerman Jones 6 War Games as Child’s Play 66 Matthew Brophy 7 Forming the Formless: Sunzi and the Military Logic of Ender Wiggin 78 Morgan Deane 8 Do Good Games Make Good People? 89 Brendan P. Shea Part Three HIVE-QUEEN: All Together Now 99 9 Bugger All!: The Clash of Cultures in Ender’s Game 101 Cole Bowman 10 Why Ender Can’t Go Home: Philotic Connections and Moral Responsibility 112 Brett Chandler Patterson 11 Of Gods and Buggers: Friendship in Ender’s Game 124 Jeffery L. Nicholas Part Four WAR: Kill or Be Killed 137 12 “I Destroy Them”: Ender, Good Intentions, and Moral Responsibility 139 Lance Belluomini 13 Ender’s Beginning and the Just War 151 James L. Cook 14 “You Had to Be a Weapon, Ender … We Aimed You”: Moral Responsibility in Ender’s Game 163 Danielle Wylie 15 The Unspoken Rules of Manly Warfare: Just War Theory in Ender’s Game 175 Kody W. Cooper Part Five HEGEMON: The Terrible Things Are Only About to Begin 187 16 Locke and Demosthenes: Virtually Dominating the World 189 Kenneth Wayne Sayles III 17 Ender’s Dilemma: Realism, Neoliberalism, and the Politics of Power 202 Ted Henry Brown and Christie L. Maloyed 18 People Are Tools 212 Greg Littmann Convening Authorities of the Court Martial of Colonel Hyrum Graff 224 The Ansible Index 230

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