Pop Goes the Decade


Book Description

Pop Goes the Decade: The 2000s comprehensively examines popular culture in the 2000s, placing the culture of the decade in historical context and showing how it not only reflected but also influenced its times. Pop Goes the Decade: The 2000s starts with a timeline of major historical pop culture events of the 2000s, followed by an introduction describing what the U.S. was like at the beginning of the new millennium and how it would change throughout the decade. Next come chapters broken down by medium: television, sports, music, movies, literature, technology, media, and fashion and art. A chapter on controversies in popular culture is followed by a chapter on game-changers, featuring 20 individuals who made a major impact on the U.S. in the 2000s. Finally, a conclusion shows the impact that pop culture in the 2000s has had on the U.S. in the years since. This volume serves as a comprehensive resource for high school and college students studying popular culture in the 2000s. It provides a summary of total impact, plus specific insights into each individual topic. It also includes a wide swath of the scholarship produced on the subject to date.




Theatre Symposium, Vol. 24


Book Description

At a time when so many options exist for access to theatrical entertainments, it is no surprise that theatre practitioners and scholars are often preoccupied with the role of the audience. While space undoubtedly impacts the rehearsal and production processes, its greater significance seems to rest in the impact a specific location has on the audience. This volume delves into issues of theatre and space, traversing traditional theatre spaces such as the African Grove Theater discussed by Gregory Carr, Tony Gunn's examination of Edward Gorey's theatrical designs, and George Pate's reflections on Beckett's stage directors. Also highlighted are some decidedly innovative spaces, like those described by J. K. Curry in her examination of "Theatre for One" and modern uses of medieval sacred spaces as detailed by Carla Lahey. Whether positive or negative in scope, meanings generated within theatre spaces are impacted by the cultural context from which they emerge--the ways in which space is conceived, scrutinized, and experiences. As a result, the relationship between space, theatre, and audience is diverse, complex, and ever changing in practice.




When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country


Book Description

The inimitable G. Gordon Liddy offers his unabashedly politically incorrect view on America.




Taboo Tunes


Book Description

In this extensively researched ode to scandal, historian and musician Blecha recounts the travails of the musicians and songs that have dared to push the hot-button topics that polite society has deemed unacceptable.




Blood and Oil


Book Description

From award-winning Wall Street Journal reporters comes a revelatory look at the inner workings of the world's most powerful royal family, and how the struggle for succession produced Saudi Arabia's charismatic but ruthless Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, aka MBS.​ 35-year-old Mohammed bin Salman's sudden rise stunned the world. Political and business leaders such as former UK prime minister Tony Blair and WME chairman Ari Emanuel flew out to meet with the crown prince and came away convinced that his desire to reform the kingdom was sincere. He spoke passionately about bringing women into the workforce and toning down Saudi Arabia's restrictive Islamic law. He lifted the ban on women driving and explored investments in Silicon Valley. But MBS began to betray an erratic interior beneath the polish laid on by scores of consultants and public relations experts like McKinsey & Company. The allegations of his extreme brutality and excess began to slip out, including that he ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. While stamping out dissent by holding 300 people, including prominent members of the Saudi royal family, in the Ritz-Carlton hotel and elsewhere for months, he continued to exhibit his extreme wealth, including buying a $70 million chateau in Europe and one of the world's most expensive yachts. It seemed that he did not understand nor care about how the outside world would react to his displays of autocratic muscle—what mattered was the flex. Blood and Oil is a gripping work of investigative journalism about one of the world's most decisive and dangerous new leaders. Hope and Scheck show how MBS' precipitous rise coincided with the fraying of the simple bargain that had been at the head of US-Saudi relations for more than 80 years: oil, for military protection. Caught in his net are well-known US bankers, Hollywood figures, and politicians, all eager to help the charming and crafty crown prince. The Middle East is already a volatile region. Add to the mix an ambitious prince with extraordinary powers, hunger for lucre, a tight relationship with the White House through President Trump's son in law Jared Kushner, and an apparent willingness to break anything—and anyone—that gets in the way of his vision, and the stakes of his rise are bracing. If his bid fails, Saudi Arabia has the potential to become an unstable failed state and a magnet for Islamic extremists. And if his bid to transform his country succeeds, even in part, it will have reverberations around the world. Longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award




My Music, My War


Book Description

In the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, recent technological developments in music listening enabled troops to carry with them vast amounts of music and easily acquire new music, for themselves and to share with their fellow troops as well as friends and loved ones far away. This ethnographic study examines U.S. troops' musical-listening habits during and after war, and the accompanying fear, domination, violence, isolation, pain, and loss that troops experienced. My Music, My War is a moving ethnographic account of what war was like for those most intimately involved. It shows how individuals survive in the messy webs of conflicting thoughts and emotions that are intricately part of the moment-to-moment and day-to-day phenomenon of war, and the pervasive memories in its aftermath. It gives fresh insight into musical listening as it relates to social dynamics, gender, community formation, memory, trauma, and politics.




Preventing and Reducing Violence in Schools and Society


Book Description

In recent years, different regions of the world have been unfortunately experiencing an increase in violent acts within various communities. For example, the United States has seen an emergence of severe violence within schools over the past two decades. This tragic phenomenon is causing administrators and practitioners to rethink teaching techniques and implement concepts of violence prevention within schools and other social organizations. Preventing and Reducing Violence in Schools and Society is a collection of innovative research on the evolution and implementation of nonviolence concepts within social settings in order to repent oppression and violence among global communities. The book explores the effective diffusion of violence through masterful negotiation and mediation skills as well as mentoring, counseling, and related processes. While highlighting topics including nonviolent teaching, active shooter training, and LGBT-phobia, this book is ideally designed for UN, governments and their heads, politicians, NGOs, communities riddled with gang and other violence, schools, educational leaders, social organizations, community leaders, teachers, preachers, religious leaders, mediators, peace activists, law enforcement, researchers, and students seeking current research on contemporary nonviolence techniques to facilitate change in schools and other societal environments.




The Terror Dream


Book Description

In this original examination of America's post-9/11 culture, journalist Faludi shines a light on the country's psychological response to the attacks of that terrible day. Turning her observational powers on the media, popular culture, and political life, Faludi unearths a barely acknowledged societal drama shot through with baffling contradictions. Why, she asks, did our culture respond to an assault against American global dominance with a frenzied summons to restore "traditional" manhood, marriage, and maternity? Why did we react as if the hijackers had targeted not a commercial and military edifice but the family home and nursery? The answer, she finds, lies in a historical anomaly unique to the American experience: the nation was forged in traumatizing assaults by nonwhite "barbarians" on town and village. That humiliation lies concealed under a myth of cowboy bluster and feminine frailty, which is reanimated whenever threat and shame looms.--From publisher description.




The Wimp Factor


Book Description

Publisher Description




Music in the Post-9/11 World


Book Description

Music in the Post-9/11 World addresses the varied and complex roles music has played in the wake of September 11, 2001. Interdisciplinary in approach, international in scope, and critical in orientation, the twelve essays in this groundbreaking volume examine a diverse array of musical responses to the terrorist attacks of that day, and reflect upon the altered social, economic, and political environment of "post-9/11" music production and consumption. Individual essays are devoted to the mass-mediated works of popular musicians such as Bruce Springsteen and Darryl Worley, as well as to lesser-known musical responses by artists in countries including Afghanistan, Egypt, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, and Senegal. Contributors also discuss a range of themes including the role played by Western classical music in rites of mourning and commemoration, "invisible" musical practices such as the creation of television news music, and implicit censorship in the mainstream media. Taken as a whole, this collection presents powerful evidence of the central role music has played in expressing, shaping, and contesting worldwide public attitudes toward the defining event of the early twenty-first century.