Author : Patricia Leavy
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 441 pages
File Size : 40,49 MB
Release : 2021-09-03
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0190085223
"The research landscape has changed dramatically over the past couple decades. As we have moved from a disciplinary to transdisciplinary terrain, as our means for communicating have increased with the Internet and social media, and as we've developed new ways of doing and representing research, the structures our research may take have also changed, as have what our professional lives may look like"--
Author : Jay Mechling
Publisher : University Press of Kansas
Page : 234 pages
File Size : 48,64 MB
Release : 2021-08-10
Category : History
ISBN : 0700632921
In Soldier Snapshots Jay Mechling explores how American men socially construct their performance of masculinity in everyday life in all-male friendship groups during their service in the military. The evidence Mechling analyzes is a collection of vernacular photographs, “snapshots,” of and by American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and aviators. Since almost all of the snapshots are photographs taken of men by other men, this book offers a unique view into the social construction, performance, and repair of American masculinity. Mechling guides the reader from the snapshots to ideas about the everyday lives of male soldiers to ideas about the lives of men in groups to ideas about American culture. In his introduction Mechling offers his thoughts about how to undertake the interdisciplinary study of American culture; he draws from history, folklore, anthropology, sociology, rhetoric, psychology, gender and sexuality studies, ethnic studies, popular culture studies, and visual studies to reveal the intricacies of how men use their folk practices in an all-male group to manage the paradoxes of their friendship and comradeship under sometimes stressful conditions. Soldier Snapshots begins with a brief history of war photography and establishes the nature of vernacular photography: the snapshot. This is followed by a jargon-free discussion of the key ideas about masculinity and the vernacular practices of men in groups, exploring male friendship, the important role of play in men’s relationships, and the ways “animal buddies” adopted by male friendship groups actually tell us even more about male friendship and issues of trust. In the final section Mechling’s careful analysis reveals how the men employ different folk practices—including rough-and-tumble playfighting, building human pyramids, bathing naked in public, cross-dressing, hazing, and gallows humor—in order to manage their relationships. Regardless of the man’s sexual orientation and sexual identity, the strong heterosexual norm in the military means that the men must find ways to understand and even enact or perform their feelings of bonding while still defining those feelings and acts as heterosexual.
Author : Marguerite S. Shaffer
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 393 pages
File Size : 50,71 MB
Release : 2012-04-17
Category : History
ISBN : 0812206843
In the United States today many people are as likely to identify themselves by their ethnicity or region as by their nationality. In this country with its diversity and inequalities, can there be a shared public culture? Is there an unbridgeable gap between cultural variety and civic unity, or can public forms of expression provide an opportunity for Americans to come together as a people? In Public Culture: Diversity, Democracy, and Community in the United States, an interdisciplinary group of scholars addresses these questions while considering the state of American public culture over the past one hundred years. From medicine shows to the Internet, from the Los Angeles Plaza to the Las Vegas Strip, from the commemoration of the Oklahoma City bombing to television programming after 9/11, public sights and scenes provide ways to negotiate new forms of belonging in a diverse, postmodern community. By analyzing these cultural phenomena, the essays in this volume reveal how mass media, consumerism, increased privatization of space, and growing political polarization have transformed public culture and the very notion of the American public. Focusing on four central themes—public action, public image, public space, and public identity—and approaching shared culture from a range of disciplines—including mass communication, history, sociology, urban studies, ethnic studies, and cultural studies—Public Culture offers refreshing perspectives on a subject of perennial significance.
Author : Lynn Spigel
Publisher :
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 19,48 MB
Release : 2022-06-24
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781478018285
Lynn Spigel explores historical snapshots of people posing in front of their television sets in the 1950s through the early 1970s, showing how TV snapshots were a popular photographic practice through which people visualized their lives in an increasingly mediated culture.
Author : D. H. Figueredo
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 49,80 MB
Release : 2014-12-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1440829195
This riveting exposé reveals how a distorted belief in Anglo superiority necessitated the rewriting of American western history, replacing heroic images of Mexican and Spanish cowboys with negative stereotypes. Early Anglo settlers in the Old West crafted negative images of Latinos in part to help justify the takeover of land occupied by Mexicans and Spaniards at the time. Unfortunately, these depictions were perpetuated throughout the 20th century in art, popular culture, and media ... eventually reshaping the narrative of the American West to the exclusion of the non-Anglo people. This book contrasts dominant lore with historical reality to provide a broad overview of the history and contributions of Latinos in the Old West. Author D. H. Figueredo sets out to debunk the myths and falsehoods of the American West by chronicling the cultural perceptions that led to such historical inaccuracies. Through spellbinding accounts, chapters address such topics as the legends behind the caballeros, Mexican culture in the Old West, and the search for cities of gold in the Southwest. Arranged chronologically and thematically, the book examines how popular culture diminished the role of the Mexican vaqueros and illustrates how the image of the Anglo cowboy became the iconic symbol of the Old West.
Author : Åke Daun
Publisher : Nordic Academic Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 42,40 MB
Release : 2012-01-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9185509744
Social scientists, a rehabilitation researcher, a folklorist, a political commentator, and other contributors survey some of the differences in European culture and discuss the complex topic of national identity in Europe. This volume forms a fascinating mosaic of European diversity, revealing idiosyncrasies such as that it is rude to interrupt in Sweden, that acting normal is quite silly enough in the Netherlands, how Poles banter about heroes, how Icelandic national identity fits into a Nordic and international context, why reunified Germany is one country and two cultures, and whether there is such a thing as a Belgian national identity.
Author : Michael F. Williams
Publisher :
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 23,29 MB
Release : 2008
Category : History
ISBN :
From the sod houses of South Dakota to the skyscrapers of New York City, these personal photographs form the first people's photo history of America.
Author : Jon P. Howell
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 282 pages
File Size : 30,26 MB
Release : 2018-10-03
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 1351614959
Snapshots of Great Leadership describes leaders who have either accomplished amazing feats or brought destruction. Although the goals of these individuals were often quite different, the leadership processes they used were frequently similar. The opening chapter explains the latest theories of leadership. Each leader snapshot adds an important "reality check" to the theories and models described in most introductory leadership textbooks, making this a key text for students taking leadership courses. This new edition features additional women and international leaders, a new "You Decide" section, and a Conclusion that clarifies the differences between good and bad leaders.
Author : Molly Thomasy Blasing
Publisher : Cornell University Press
Page : 305 pages
File Size : 27,52 MB
Release : 2021-07-15
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1501753703
Snapshots of the Soul considers how photography has shaped Russian poetry from the early twentieth century to the present day. Drawing on theories of the lyric and the elegy, the social history of technology, and little-known archival materials, Molly Thomasy Blasing offers close readings of poems by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Joseph Brodsky, and Bella Akhmadulina, as well as by the late and post-Soviet poets Andrei Sen-Sen'kov, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, and Kirill Medvedev, to understand their fascination with the visual language, representational power, and metaphorical possibilities offered by the camera and the photographic image. Within the context of long-standing anxieties about the threat that visual media pose to literary culture, Blasing finds that these poets were attracted to the affinities and tensions that exist between the lyric or elegy and the snapshot. Snapshots of the Soul reveals that at the core of each poet's approach to "writing the photograph" is the urge to demonstrate the superior ability of poetic language to capture and convey human experience. Open Access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Author : Robert Weissberg
Publisher : Transaction Publishers
Page : 374 pages
File Size : 46,98 MB
Release :
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781412837606
Today's political climate overflows with admonitions to "get involved," as if entering the political fray is the great cure-all for almost any conceivable social problem. This advice may be a recipe for disaster. Staying out of politics is sometimes wiser. Pursuing non-political options may even be best given the inherent difficulties of the political pathway. In this volume, Robert Weissberg offers a corrective to a view that has evolved into a civic religion. A nearly missionary flavor infuses the very notion of political activism, and it is especially prevalent among those on the ideological spectrum's left, though hardly unknown among conservatives. Getting involved, it is said, will do everything from improve our education to make us healthier (or, for conservatives, reduce immorality). This benefit is grossly oversold, especially given our gridlock-mired political system, one that greatly limits what can be accomplished. Even the most worthy causes face stiff opposition, and for every winner, there are countless losers. Academics in particular have promoted politics as the great remedy for social and economic ills, but this prescription rests on flawed, often myopic research that may have a hidden (liberal statist) ideological agenda. We cannot safely assume that those befuddled by economic tasks will eventually become adroit political players. Furthermore, research often demonstrates zero about political progress that results from political activism, though it persuasively asserts that such gains have been made. Scholars also forget that most goals that can be pursued in the civic realm can also be sought through private channels. Millions of parents, for example, have secured better educations for their children simply by abandoning public education, not battling "the system." This volume constitutes both a powerful challenge to the dogma that political activism is an unqualified good, and a strong case that in many instances following the private route may be the superior option. It will be of interest to political scientists, sociologists, and students of public policy. "The Limits of Civic Activism constitutes both a powerful challenge to the dogma that political activism is an unqualified good, and a strong case that in many instances following the private route may be the superior option. The book will be of interest to political scientists, sociologists, and students of public policy." -SirReadaLot.org Robert Weissberg is professor of political science emeritus, University of Illinois-Urbana. He is author of Polling, Policy and Public Opinion, The Politics of Empowerment, Political Tolerance, and Political Learning, Political Choice and Democratic Citizenship.
