Search results for ""Author Diana Crane""
The University of Chicago Press Fashion and Its Social Agendas: Class, Gender, and Identity in Clothing
It has long been said that clothes make the man (or woman), but is it still true today? If so, how has the information clothes convey changed over the years? Using a wide range of historical and contemporary materials, Diana Crane demonstrates how the social significance of clothing has been transformed. Crane compares 19th-century societies - France and the United States - where social class was the most salient aspect of social identity signified in clothing with late 20th-century America, where lifestyle, gender, sexual orientation, age and ethnicity are more meaningful to individuals in constructing their wardrobes. Today, clothes worn at work signify social class, but leisure clothes convey meanings ranging from trite to political. In today's multicode societies, clothes inhibit as well as facilitate communication between highly fragmented social groups. Crane extends her comparison by showing how 19th-century French designers created fashions that suited lifestyles of Paris elites but that were also widely adopted outside France. By contrast, today's designers operate in a global marketplace, shaped by television, film and popular music. No longer confined to elites, trendsetters are drawn from many social groups, and most trends have short trajectories. To assess the impact of fashion on women, Crane uses voices of college-aged and middle-aged women who took part in focus groups. These discussions yield fascinating information about women's perceptions of female identity and "Fashion and Its Social Agendas" stands out as a critical study of gender, fashion and consumer culture.
£30.00
John Wiley and Sons Ltd The Sociology of Culture: Emerging Theoretical Perspectives
In this fascinating collection of essays, the 'fissured terrain' of the Sociology of Culture is charted as never before. Covering a wide range of subjects and a diversity of approaches, this volume demonstrates how far contemporaray sociologists of culture have come in challenging the way that culture has been and is perceived within mainstream sociology.
£39.95
The University of Chicago Press The Transformation of the Avant-Garde: The New York Art World, 1940-1985
With the rise of Abstract Expressionism, New York City became the acknowledged center of the avant-garde. Diana Crane documents the transformation of the New York art world between 1940 and 1985, both in the artistic styles that emerged during this period and the expansion of the number and types of institutions that purchased and displayed various works. Crane's account is built around discussions of seven styles: Abstract Expressionism in the forties; Pop art and Minimalism in the sixties; Figurative painting, Photorealism, and Pattern painting in the early seventies; and Neo-Expressionism in the early eighties. Demonstrating that the New York art world moved toward increasing acceptance of dominant American cultural trends, Crane offers a fascinating look not only at the intricacies of New York's artistic inner circle but also at the sociology of work and professions, the economics of culture markets such as "dealing art," and the sociology of culture.
£25.16
