Cressida J. Heyes
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195310535
- eISBN:
- 9780199871445
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195310535.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy
This book argues that we live in an age of somatic subjects, whose authentic identity must be represented through the body. When a perceived mismatch between inner self and outer form occurs, ...
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This book argues that we live in an age of somatic subjects, whose authentic identity must be represented through the body. When a perceived mismatch between inner self and outer form occurs, technologies can step in to change the flesh. Drawing on Wittgenstein's objections to the idea of a private language, and on Foucault's critical account of normalization, this book shows how we have been led to think of ourselves in this way, and suggests that breaking the hold of this picture of the self will be central to our freedom. How should we work on ourselves when so often the kind of self we are urged to be is itself a product of normalization? This question is answered through three case studies that analyze feminist interpretations of transgender politics, the allure of weight-loss dieting, and representations of cosmetic surgery patients. Mixing philosophical argument with personal narrative and analysis of popular culture, the book moves from engagement with Leslie Feinberg on trans liberation, to an auto-ethnography of Weight Watchers meetings, to a reading of Extreme Makeover, to the author's own practice of yoga. The book draws on philosophy, sociology, medicine, cultural studies, and psychology to suggest that these examples, in different ways, are connected to the picture of the somatic subject. Working on the self can both generate new skills and make us more docile; enhance our pleasures and narrow our possibilities; encourage us to take care of ourselves while increasing our dependence on experts. Self transformation through the body can limit us and liberate us at the same time. To move beyond this paradox, the book concludes by arguing that Foucault's last work on ethics provides untapped resources for understanding how we might use our embodied agency to change ourselves for the better.Less
This book argues that we live in an age of somatic subjects, whose authentic identity must be represented through the body. When a perceived mismatch between inner self and outer form occurs, technologies can step in to change the flesh. Drawing on Wittgenstein's objections to the idea of a private language, and on Foucault's critical account of normalization, this book shows how we have been led to think of ourselves in this way, and suggests that breaking the hold of this picture of the self will be central to our freedom. How should we work on ourselves when so often the kind of self we are urged to be is itself a product of normalization? This question is answered through three case studies that analyze feminist interpretations of transgender politics, the allure of weight-loss dieting, and representations of cosmetic surgery patients. Mixing philosophical argument with personal narrative and analysis of popular culture, the book moves from engagement with Leslie Feinberg on trans liberation, to an auto-ethnography of Weight Watchers meetings, to a reading of Extreme Makeover, to the author's own practice of yoga. The book draws on philosophy, sociology, medicine, cultural studies, and psychology to suggest that these examples, in different ways, are connected to the picture of the somatic subject. Working on the self can both generate new skills and make us more docile; enhance our pleasures and narrow our possibilities; encourage us to take care of ourselves while increasing our dependence on experts. Self transformation through the body can limit us and liberate us at the same time. To move beyond this paradox, the book concludes by arguing that Foucault's last work on ethics provides untapped resources for understanding how we might use our embodied agency to change ourselves for the better.
S. C. Williams
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198207696
- eISBN:
- 9780191677786
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198207696.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, History of Religion
This book challenges the domination of the institutional church as the overriding concern of 19th-century religious history by taking as its starting point the nature and expression of religious ...
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This book challenges the domination of the institutional church as the overriding concern of 19th-century religious history by taking as its starting point the nature and expression of religious ideas outside the immediate sphere of the church within the wider arena of popular culture. It considers in detail how these beliefs formed part of a richly textured language of personal, familial, and popular identity in the day-to-day lives of the inhabitants of the London Borough of Southwark between c.1880 and the outbreak of the Second World War. The study highlights the persistence of patterns dismissed as alien to the industrial and urban environment. The interaction of folk idioms with institutional religious language and practice is also considered and urban popular religion is identified as a distinctive system of belief in its own right. This study also pioneers a methodology for exploring belief and interpreting it as a popular cultural phenomenon. A wide range of source materials are drawn on including oral history. Centrality is given to understanding the ways in which individuals expressed and communicated their religious ideas.Less
This book challenges the domination of the institutional church as the overriding concern of 19th-century religious history by taking as its starting point the nature and expression of religious ideas outside the immediate sphere of the church within the wider arena of popular culture. It considers in detail how these beliefs formed part of a richly textured language of personal, familial, and popular identity in the day-to-day lives of the inhabitants of the London Borough of Southwark between c.1880 and the outbreak of the Second World War. The study highlights the persistence of patterns dismissed as alien to the industrial and urban environment. The interaction of folk idioms with institutional religious language and practice is also considered and urban popular religion is identified as a distinctive system of belief in its own right. This study also pioneers a methodology for exploring belief and interpreting it as a popular cultural phenomenon. A wide range of source materials are drawn on including oral history. Centrality is given to understanding the ways in which individuals expressed and communicated their religious ideas.
Catherine Rider
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199282227
- eISBN:
- 9780191713026
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199282227.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Medieval History
This book investigates the common medieval belief that magic could cause impotence. Because impotence was a ground for annulling a marriage in medieval canon law, it received a large amount of ...
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This book investigates the common medieval belief that magic could cause impotence. Because impotence was a ground for annulling a marriage in medieval canon law, it received a large amount of discussion in the Middle Ages, and many of these discussions also described how impotence could be caused by magic. Chapters 1-4 trace the development of ideas about magically-caused impotence from the ancient world into the 12th century, arguing that medieval writers only gradually came to distinguish impotence magic from other forms of love magic. Chapters 5-9 then analyse the main kinds of sources which mentioned impotence magic in the late Middle Ages: magical texts, confession manuals, canon law commentaries, theology commentaries, and medicine. A comparison of these sources reveals that medieval writers held surprisingly diverse opinions about what magic was, how it worked, and whether it was ever legitimate to use it. Finally, in Chapter 10, the book shows how ideas about impotence magic were affected in the 15th century by new fears of demonic witchcraft. The book argues that many authors who discussed impotence magic were interested in popular magical practices, and so it acts as a case study of the relationship between elite and popular culture in the Middle Ages. It emphasizes the importance of the 13th-century pastoral reform movement, which sought to enforce more orthodox religious practices. This movement brought churchmen into contact with popular magic, and encouraged them to write about what they saw.Less
This book investigates the common medieval belief that magic could cause impotence. Because impotence was a ground for annulling a marriage in medieval canon law, it received a large amount of discussion in the Middle Ages, and many of these discussions also described how impotence could be caused by magic. Chapters 1-4 trace the development of ideas about magically-caused impotence from the ancient world into the 12th century, arguing that medieval writers only gradually came to distinguish impotence magic from other forms of love magic. Chapters 5-9 then analyse the main kinds of sources which mentioned impotence magic in the late Middle Ages: magical texts, confession manuals, canon law commentaries, theology commentaries, and medicine. A comparison of these sources reveals that medieval writers held surprisingly diverse opinions about what magic was, how it worked, and whether it was ever legitimate to use it. Finally, in Chapter 10, the book shows how ideas about impotence magic were affected in the 15th century by new fears of demonic witchcraft. The book argues that many authors who discussed impotence magic were interested in popular magical practices, and so it acts as a case study of the relationship between elite and popular culture in the Middle Ages. It emphasizes the importance of the 13th-century pastoral reform movement, which sought to enforce more orthodox religious practices. This movement brought churchmen into contact with popular magic, and encouraged them to write about what they saw.
Jason C Bivins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195340815
- eISBN:
- 9780199867158
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340815.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book investigates American political religions by studying how conservative evangelical political orientations are shaped and spread by pop cultural narratives of fear and horror. This book ...
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This book investigates American political religions by studying how conservative evangelical political orientations are shaped and spread by pop cultural narratives of fear and horror. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to what it calls the “religion of fear”, a form of religious social criticism produced and sustained in evangelical engagements with pop culture. The book's cases include Jack Chick's cartoon tracts, anti‐metal and anti‐rap preaching, the Halloween dramas known as Hell Houses, and Left Behind novels. By situating them in their sociopolitical contexts and drawing out their creators' motivations, the book locates in these entertainments a highly politicized worldview comprising evangelical piety, the aesthetics of genre horror, a narrative of American decline, and a combative approach to public politics. The book also proposes its own theoretical categories for explaining the cases: the Erotics of Fear and the Demonology Within. What does it say about American public life that such ideas of fearful religion and violent politics have become normalized? The book engages this question critically, establishing links and resonances between the cultural politics of evangelical pop, the activism of the New Christian Right, and the political exhaustion facing American democracy.Less
This book investigates American political religions by studying how conservative evangelical political orientations are shaped and spread by pop cultural narratives of fear and horror. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to what it calls the “religion of fear”, a form of religious social criticism produced and sustained in evangelical engagements with pop culture. The book's cases include Jack Chick's cartoon tracts, anti‐metal and anti‐rap preaching, the Halloween dramas known as Hell Houses, and Left Behind novels. By situating them in their sociopolitical contexts and drawing out their creators' motivations, the book locates in these entertainments a highly politicized worldview comprising evangelical piety, the aesthetics of genre horror, a narrative of American decline, and a combative approach to public politics. The book also proposes its own theoretical categories for explaining the cases: the Erotics of Fear and the Demonology Within. What does it say about American public life that such ideas of fearful religion and violent politics have become normalized? The book engages this question critically, establishing links and resonances between the cultural politics of evangelical pop, the activism of the New Christian Right, and the political exhaustion facing American democracy.
Cathy Gutierrez
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195388350
- eISBN:
- 9780199866472
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195388350.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The conclusion argues that religions provide templates for thinking that endure long after their immediate relevance to a society has faded. An apocalyptic worldview in which the end of time is ...
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The conclusion argues that religions provide templates for thinking that endure long after their immediate relevance to a society has faded. An apocalyptic worldview in which the end of time is imminent remains in secular culture drained of meaning—the final days when the saved will be separated from the damned exists uncomfortably alongside multiculturalism and globalization. The inclusive nature of Platonic thinking, the ascent of a ladder of knowledge, love, or mysticism still has echoes in popular culture, where Spiritualism ultimately succeeded as an ethical enterprise.Less
The conclusion argues that religions provide templates for thinking that endure long after their immediate relevance to a society has faded. An apocalyptic worldview in which the end of time is imminent remains in secular culture drained of meaning—the final days when the saved will be separated from the damned exists uncomfortably alongside multiculturalism and globalization. The inclusive nature of Platonic thinking, the ascent of a ladder of knowledge, love, or mysticism still has echoes in popular culture, where Spiritualism ultimately succeeded as an ethical enterprise.
Jason C. Bivins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195340815
- eISBN:
- 9780199867158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340815.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The book's introduction describe the image of “Scary Jesus,” which prompted a shift in approach to American political religions from one rooted in conventional studies of protest and government to ...
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The book's introduction describe the image of “Scary Jesus,” which prompted a shift in approach to American political religions from one rooted in conventional studies of protest and government to one oriented around cultural politics and representation. The chapter explores the way in which popular discourse and imagery can be manipulated for political purposes, and specifically engages the efficacy of tales of fright and horror in these endeavors. The chapter surveys standard approaches to religion and politics, and — drawing on multiple disciplines — proposes to move beyond standard approaches to “church and state” or “civil religion”. The chapter concludes by proposing two new terms — the Erotics of Fear and the Demonology Within — for thinking about the Religion of Fear.Less
The book's introduction describe the image of “Scary Jesus,” which prompted a shift in approach to American political religions from one rooted in conventional studies of protest and government to one oriented around cultural politics and representation. The chapter explores the way in which popular discourse and imagery can be manipulated for political purposes, and specifically engages the efficacy of tales of fright and horror in these endeavors. The chapter surveys standard approaches to religion and politics, and — drawing on multiple disciplines — proposes to move beyond standard approaches to “church and state” or “civil religion”. The chapter concludes by proposing two new terms — the Erotics of Fear and the Demonology Within — for thinking about the Religion of Fear.
Melanie Jane Wright
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195152265
- eISBN:
- 9780199834884
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195152263.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This book is about the representation of Moses and the Exodus narrative in three North American texts: Moses in Red by Lincoln Steffens; Moses, Man of the Mountain (1926), by Zora Neale Hurston ...
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This book is about the representation of Moses and the Exodus narrative in three North American texts: Moses in Red by Lincoln Steffens; Moses, Man of the Mountain (1926), by Zora Neale Hurston (1939), and Cecil B. DeMille's film, The Ten Commandments (1956). It does not seek to judge the merits of these works, but rather to ask why and how they recast the biblical narrative as they did, and how their images of Moses were received. The study holds in tension the roles of producers and consumers, valuing both as interpreters and creators of the Moses story.Drawing on insights from cultural studies the books and the film are located in the “religious” contexts of their day (e.g., in relation to changing attitudes to biblical interpretation and authority, and to popular movements within American religion) and in broader political frameworks (e.g., in relation to conflicts like the Cold War, or vis‐a‐vis ethnic or gender issues). In examining Steffens's, Hurston's and DeMille's Moses images, this book lays bare the dynamics involved in the afterlife of a figure who remains central to the identity of American civilization. It also argues that the scope of biblical studies should develop to embrace more fully, the critical study of popular culture and the ways in which “ordinary people” think about the Bible.Less
This book is about the representation of Moses and the Exodus narrative in three North American texts: Moses in Red by Lincoln Steffens; Moses, Man of the Mountain (1926), by Zora Neale Hurston (1939), and Cecil B. DeMille's film, The Ten Commandments (1956). It does not seek to judge the merits of these works, but rather to ask why and how they recast the biblical narrative as they did, and how their images of Moses were received. The study holds in tension the roles of producers and consumers, valuing both as interpreters and creators of the Moses story.
Drawing on insights from cultural studies the books and the film are located in the “religious” contexts of their day (e.g., in relation to changing attitudes to biblical interpretation and authority, and to popular movements within American religion) and in broader political frameworks (e.g., in relation to conflicts like the Cold War, or vis‐a‐vis ethnic or gender issues). In examining Steffens's, Hurston's and DeMille's Moses images, this book lays bare the dynamics involved in the afterlife of a figure who remains central to the identity of American civilization. It also argues that the scope of biblical studies should develop to embrace more fully, the critical study of popular culture and the ways in which “ordinary people” think about the Bible.
Jason C. Bivins
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195340815
- eISBN:
- 9780199867158
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195340815.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By ...
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This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By situating the Religion of Fear historically and comparing it with both political fear and earlier forms of demonology, this chapter reveals its specific contours. The chapter examines the fearful qualities of religion. It then describes the emergence of evangelicalism within a cluster of concerns to establish religious identity against fearful Others. This chapter next describes the way in which elements of horror and the Gothic resonate with religious strategies of alterity. The chapter concludes by describing the evangelical culture industry, which is part of the work on religious identities.Less
This chapter establishes four contextual factors shaping the Religion of Fear: the history of evangelicalism, political fear, American Christian demonology, and the evangelical mediascape. By situating the Religion of Fear historically and comparing it with both political fear and earlier forms of demonology, this chapter reveals its specific contours. The chapter examines the fearful qualities of religion. It then describes the emergence of evangelicalism within a cluster of concerns to establish religious identity against fearful Others. This chapter next describes the way in which elements of horror and the Gothic resonate with religious strategies of alterity. The chapter concludes by describing the evangelical culture industry, which is part of the work on religious identities.
Lawrence W. Levine
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195082975
- eISBN:
- 9780199854035
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195082975.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
The chapter focuses on popular culture and how it is an effective mechanism for understanding Depression America. This chapter aims to get get away from rigid adjective labels as much as possible and ...
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The chapter focuses on popular culture and how it is an effective mechanism for understanding Depression America. This chapter aims to get get away from rigid adjective labels as much as possible and recognize that while culture may not be seamless, it is connected. It recommends a rethink of a series of attitudes and images that prevent the serious study of popular culture: image of the purely passive mass audience, all forms of culture only popular culture is so thoroughly formulaic, the notion that popular culture was and is invariably “escapist” and the notion that popular culture may not be generally be on the cutting edge of knowledge or style it is therefore not truly an art form. In black folk culture, there is no single overarching thematic matrix. Black folk in and out of slavery used different parts of their expressive culture for different purposes.Less
The chapter focuses on popular culture and how it is an effective mechanism for understanding Depression America. This chapter aims to get get away from rigid adjective labels as much as possible and recognize that while culture may not be seamless, it is connected. It recommends a rethink of a series of attitudes and images that prevent the serious study of popular culture: image of the purely passive mass audience, all forms of culture only popular culture is so thoroughly formulaic, the notion that popular culture was and is invariably “escapist” and the notion that popular culture may not be generally be on the cutting edge of knowledge or style it is therefore not truly an art form. In black folk culture, there is no single overarching thematic matrix. Black folk in and out of slavery used different parts of their expressive culture for different purposes.
Emma Griffin
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197263211
- eISBN:
- 9780191734427
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197263211.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Social History
This chapter emphasizes several concluding remarks. It pinpoints a few interesting points for criticism, such as the omission of horse-racing and fighting sports. The chapter highlights the fact that ...
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This chapter emphasizes several concluding remarks. It pinpoints a few interesting points for criticism, such as the omission of horse-racing and fighting sports. The chapter highlights the fact that popular culture emerged as the outcome of negotiations between different sections of society. These negotiations were sometimes considered as acrimonious or harmonious, but are always complex.Less
This chapter emphasizes several concluding remarks. It pinpoints a few interesting points for criticism, such as the omission of horse-racing and fighting sports. The chapter highlights the fact that popular culture emerged as the outcome of negotiations between different sections of society. These negotiations were sometimes considered as acrimonious or harmonious, but are always complex.
Barry Stephenson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199732753
- eISBN:
- 9780199777310
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732753.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity, Religion and Society
The focus of this chapter is the carnivalesque character of Wittenberg’s Luther festivals, especially Luther’s Wedding. The historical suppression of carnival and popular culture in the centuries ...
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The focus of this chapter is the carnivalesque character of Wittenberg’s Luther festivals, especially Luther’s Wedding. The historical suppression of carnival and popular culture in the centuries following the Reformation is presented. The chapter argues that Wittenberg’s festivals represent the reemergence of a festive popular culture. Wittenberg’s festivals are interpreted as a form of a mimesis and sympathetic magic, as individuals attempt to actualize, through performance and reenactment, a remembered convivial culture of the past associated with medieval carnival.Less
The focus of this chapter is the carnivalesque character of Wittenberg’s Luther festivals, especially Luther’s Wedding. The historical suppression of carnival and popular culture in the centuries following the Reformation is presented. The chapter argues that Wittenberg’s festivals represent the reemergence of a festive popular culture. Wittenberg’s festivals are interpreted as a form of a mimesis and sympathetic magic, as individuals attempt to actualize, through performance and reenactment, a remembered convivial culture of the past associated with medieval carnival.
George Cheney, Daniel J. Lair, Dean Ritz, and Brenden E. Kendall
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195182774
- eISBN:
- 9780199871001
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182774.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Corporate Governance and Accountability
This chapter explores how we have limited our own understanding and application of ethics at work through our everyday talk about it. The chapter begins by arguing that how we frame ethics is as ...
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This chapter explores how we have limited our own understanding and application of ethics at work through our everyday talk about it. The chapter begins by arguing that how we frame ethics is as important, and sometimes more important, than the specific ethical decisions we make. The chapter explains how a perspective on ethics that is grounded in communication and rhetoric can illuminate how we unnecessarily restrain the influence of ethics at work. The chapter makes the case for examining popular culture and everyday talk for clues to how ethics is treated in our professional lives. Turning the saying “talk is cheap” on its head, the chapter urges a serious consideration of what it means to say, for example, that one's work is “just a job” or that we should “let the market decide.” Thus, the reader is urged to find ethical implications in diverse messages and cases, ranging from codes and handbooks, to television shows and Internet advertising, to everyday conversation, including sayings that become part of who we are.Less
This chapter explores how we have limited our own understanding and application of ethics at work through our everyday talk about it. The chapter begins by arguing that how we frame ethics is as important, and sometimes more important, than the specific ethical decisions we make. The chapter explains how a perspective on ethics that is grounded in communication and rhetoric can illuminate how we unnecessarily restrain the influence of ethics at work. The chapter makes the case for examining popular culture and everyday talk for clues to how ethics is treated in our professional lives. Turning the saying “talk is cheap” on its head, the chapter urges a serious consideration of what it means to say, for example, that one's work is “just a job” or that we should “let the market decide.” Thus, the reader is urged to find ethical implications in diverse messages and cases, ranging from codes and handbooks, to television shows and Internet advertising, to everyday conversation, including sayings that become part of who we are.
Anthony Harkins
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195189506
- eISBN:
- 9780199788835
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189506.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This book examines the evolution of one of the most pervasive and enduring American icons from the 18th-century to the present day. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American ...
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This book examines the evolution of one of the most pervasive and enduring American icons from the 18th-century to the present day. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American popular culture, from comics to country music to television and the Internet, the book argues that the longevity of the hillbilly stems from its ambiguity as a marker of both social derision and regional pride. Typically associated with Appalachia or the Ozarks, the “hillbilly” was viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the social order, and as a keeper of traditional values of family, home, and physical production. The character was therefore both a foil to an increasingly urbanizing and industrializing America and a symbol of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life. The book also argues that “hillbillies” have played a critical role in the construction of whiteness and modernity. Middle-class Americans imagined hillbillies, with their supposedly pure Anglo-Saxon or Scottish origins, as an exotic race, akin to blacks and Indians, but still native and white, as opposed to the growing influx of immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, the image's whiteness allowed crude caricatures of Southern mountaineers to persist long after similar ethnic and racial stereotypes had become socially unacceptable.Less
This book examines the evolution of one of the most pervasive and enduring American icons from the 18th-century to the present day. Spanning film, literature, and the entire expanse of American popular culture, from comics to country music to television and the Internet, the book argues that the longevity of the hillbilly stems from its ambiguity as a marker of both social derision and regional pride. Typically associated with Appalachia or the Ozarks, the “hillbilly” was viewed by mainstream Americans simultaneously as a violent degenerate who threatens the social order, and as a keeper of traditional values of family, home, and physical production. The character was therefore both a foil to an increasingly urbanizing and industrializing America and a symbol of a nostalgic past free of the problems of contemporary life. The book also argues that “hillbillies” have played a critical role in the construction of whiteness and modernity. Middle-class Americans imagined hillbillies, with their supposedly pure Anglo-Saxon or Scottish origins, as an exotic race, akin to blacks and Indians, but still native and white, as opposed to the growing influx of immigrants in the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, the image's whiteness allowed crude caricatures of Southern mountaineers to persist long after similar ethnic and racial stereotypes had become socially unacceptable.
Richard White and Hsu-Ming Teo
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199563739
- eISBN:
- 9780191701894
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199563739.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter examines popular culture of the British Empire in Australia. It identifies the underlying structural reasons for the emphasis on ‘the popular’ in the creative output of the colonies and ...
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This chapter examines popular culture of the British Empire in Australia. It identifies the underlying structural reasons for the emphasis on ‘the popular’ in the creative output of the colonies and evaluates the imperial myths and meanings which animated the popular pastimes of the colonists. It suggests that even popular ephemera normally associated with the promotion of a distinctive Australian nationalism were often created against imperial and even determined by it.Less
This chapter examines popular culture of the British Empire in Australia. It identifies the underlying structural reasons for the emphasis on ‘the popular’ in the creative output of the colonies and evaluates the imperial myths and meanings which animated the popular pastimes of the colonists. It suggests that even popular ephemera normally associated with the promotion of a distinctive Australian nationalism were often created against imperial and even determined by it.
Diana Walsh Pasulka
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195335224
- eISBN:
- 9780199868810
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195335224.003.0011
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter explores contemporary representations of death in American popular culture, and elaborates on their meaning for today's youth. Death appeals to the young for several reasons. The heroes ...
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This chapter explores contemporary representations of death in American popular culture, and elaborates on their meaning for today's youth. Death appeals to the young for several reasons. The heroes of television shows and movies present a way to negotiate the finality of death. Such characters can be interpreted as modern versions of the psychopomp. Current representations of death, particularly those that target youth, avoid a traditional interpretation of death characterized as final. Instead, death in popular culture is an extension of life—one where good and evil are more clearly defined, and where the fantastic lives. Although the apparent whimsical aspects of these representations seem to indicate that today's youth are denying death, the experiences of the classes the author of this chapter has taught suggests otherwise. The students in those classes maintained a healthy “suspension of belief” while consuming these images. These representations allow students to reflect upon death without the emotional involvement associated with more realistic portrayals of death.Less
This chapter explores contemporary representations of death in American popular culture, and elaborates on their meaning for today's youth. Death appeals to the young for several reasons. The heroes of television shows and movies present a way to negotiate the finality of death. Such characters can be interpreted as modern versions of the psychopomp. Current representations of death, particularly those that target youth, avoid a traditional interpretation of death characterized as final. Instead, death in popular culture is an extension of life—one where good and evil are more clearly defined, and where the fantastic lives. Although the apparent whimsical aspects of these representations seem to indicate that today's youth are denying death, the experiences of the classes the author of this chapter has taught suggests otherwise. The students in those classes maintained a healthy “suspension of belief” while consuming these images. These representations allow students to reflect upon death without the emotional involvement associated with more realistic portrayals of death.
Richard F. Kuisel
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691151816
- eISBN:
- 9781400839971
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691151816.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter details the rise of anti-Americanism in France, in particular French socialist minister of culture Jack Lang's attack against American popular culture. Lang began by refusing to attend ...
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This chapter details the rise of anti-Americanism in France, in particular French socialist minister of culture Jack Lang's attack against American popular culture. Lang began by refusing to attend the American film festival at Deauville in September 1981; several months later he gave a notorious address denouncing American cultural imperialism at a UNESCO conference in Mexico City; and then he tried to organize a global “crusade” to combat cultural imports from the United States. Lang was a flamboyant young politician whose movie-star good looks, iconic pink jacket, dramatic initiatives, and hyperactive ways won him both admiration and ridicule. He presided over the Ministry of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993.Less
This chapter details the rise of anti-Americanism in France, in particular French socialist minister of culture Jack Lang's attack against American popular culture. Lang began by refusing to attend the American film festival at Deauville in September 1981; several months later he gave a notorious address denouncing American cultural imperialism at a UNESCO conference in Mexico City; and then he tried to organize a global “crusade” to combat cultural imports from the United States. Lang was a flamboyant young politician whose movie-star good looks, iconic pink jacket, dramatic initiatives, and hyperactive ways won him both admiration and ridicule. He presided over the Ministry of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993.
Richard Iton
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195178463
- eISBN:
- 9780199851812
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195178463.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
We have come to realize that the exclusion and marginalization of the blacks in the United States illustrates a dynamic wherein this same group of people simultaneously experience the opposite — a ...
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We have come to realize that the exclusion and marginalization of the blacks in the United States illustrates a dynamic wherein this same group of people simultaneously experience the opposite — a dominant order and a privileged community as demonstrated by political deprivation and dominance in popular culture. As it can be observed that there is an existing relationship among political events that involve African American elected officials, interest groups, protest organizations, mobilization, and religious media, the author attempts to look into the linkage of popular culture, specifically black popular culture, to both formal and informal politics. In this book, the author also looks into the implications of viewing culture as politics during the post-civil rights era.Less
We have come to realize that the exclusion and marginalization of the blacks in the United States illustrates a dynamic wherein this same group of people simultaneously experience the opposite — a dominant order and a privileged community as demonstrated by political deprivation and dominance in popular culture. As it can be observed that there is an existing relationship among political events that involve African American elected officials, interest groups, protest organizations, mobilization, and religious media, the author attempts to look into the linkage of popular culture, specifically black popular culture, to both formal and informal politics. In this book, the author also looks into the implications of viewing culture as politics during the post-civil rights era.
Christopher Hilliard
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199695171
- eISBN:
- 9780199949946
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199695171.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book is a history of the most influential movement in modern British literary criticism. F. R. Leavis and his collaborators on the Cambridge journal Scrutiny in the 1920s and 1930s demonstrated ...
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This book is a history of the most influential movement in modern British literary criticism. F. R. Leavis and his collaborators on the Cambridge journal Scrutiny in the 1920s and 1930s demonstrated compelling ways of reading modernist poetry, Shakespeare, and the ‘texts’ of advertising. Crucially, they offered a way of teaching critical reading, an approach that could be adapted for schools and adult education classes, modelled in radio talks and paperback guides to English Literature, and taken up in universities as far afield as Colombo and Sydney. This book shows how a small critical school turned into a movement with an international reach. It tracks down Leavis's students, analysing the pattern of their social origins and subsequent careers in the context of twentieth-century social change. It shows how teachers transformed Scrutiny approaches as they tried to put them into practice in grammar and secondary modern schools. And it explores the complex, even contradictory politics of the movement. Champions of creative writing and enemies of ‘progressive’ education alike based their arguments on Scrutiny's interpretation of modern culture. ‘Left-Leavisites’ such as Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, and Stuart Hall wrought influential interpretations of social class and popular culture out of arguments with the Scrutiny tradition. This is the first book to examine major figures such as these alongside the hundreds of other teachers and writers in the movement whose names are obscure but who wrestled with the same challenges: how do you approach a baffling poem? How do you uncover what an advertisement is trying to do? How can literature inform our everyday experiences and judgements? What does ‘culture’ mean in modern times?Less
This book is a history of the most influential movement in modern British literary criticism. F. R. Leavis and his collaborators on the Cambridge journal Scrutiny in the 1920s and 1930s demonstrated compelling ways of reading modernist poetry, Shakespeare, and the ‘texts’ of advertising. Crucially, they offered a way of teaching critical reading, an approach that could be adapted for schools and adult education classes, modelled in radio talks and paperback guides to English Literature, and taken up in universities as far afield as Colombo and Sydney. This book shows how a small critical school turned into a movement with an international reach. It tracks down Leavis's students, analysing the pattern of their social origins and subsequent careers in the context of twentieth-century social change. It shows how teachers transformed Scrutiny approaches as they tried to put them into practice in grammar and secondary modern schools. And it explores the complex, even contradictory politics of the movement. Champions of creative writing and enemies of ‘progressive’ education alike based their arguments on Scrutiny's interpretation of modern culture. ‘Left-Leavisites’ such as Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, and Stuart Hall wrought influential interpretations of social class and popular culture out of arguments with the Scrutiny tradition. This is the first book to examine major figures such as these alongside the hundreds of other teachers and writers in the movement whose names are obscure but who wrestled with the same challenges: how do you approach a baffling poem? How do you uncover what an advertisement is trying to do? How can literature inform our everyday experiences and judgements? What does ‘culture’ mean in modern times?
Corey Ross
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199278213
- eISBN:
- 9780191707933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199278213.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This concluding chapter draws out a number of themes that run throughout the book. Only by approaching the rise of the media within a longer-term framework and considering what was unique about ...
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This concluding chapter draws out a number of themes that run throughout the book. Only by approaching the rise of the media within a longer-term framework and considering what was unique about Germany in international perspective can one adequately appreciate their social role. It advances a number of arguments: that the social and political impact of the media were powerfully influenced by local conditions; that they supported both processes of democratization and populist dictatorship; that their social impact depended on the precise nature of production and consumption; and that the major turning points in the story tended to be periods of upheaval and depression. In many respects mass culture under the Nazis was very much a part of broader trends; what most distinguished it was the violent and racist context in which it operated.Less
This concluding chapter draws out a number of themes that run throughout the book. Only by approaching the rise of the media within a longer-term framework and considering what was unique about Germany in international perspective can one adequately appreciate their social role. It advances a number of arguments: that the social and political impact of the media were powerfully influenced by local conditions; that they supported both processes of democratization and populist dictatorship; that their social impact depended on the precise nature of production and consumption; and that the major turning points in the story tended to be periods of upheaval and depression. In many respects mass culture under the Nazis was very much a part of broader trends; what most distinguished it was the violent and racist context in which it operated.
BILLIE MELMAN
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780197264942
- eISBN:
- 9780191754111
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264942.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter discusses Tudorism in popular historical culture during the nineteenth century. First, it briefly delineates the apparent streamlining of the Tudor era into a broadly Whig and ...
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This chapter discusses Tudorism in popular historical culture during the nineteenth century. First, it briefly delineates the apparent streamlining of the Tudor era into a broadly Whig and liberal-radical culture of progress and improvement and the confident interpretation of history. It then focuses on the evolution of popular Tudorism with its emphasis upon, and uses of, horror and its relations to modernity and urbanisation: what Dickens described as the ‘attraction of repulsion’ in horror. It traces developments in representations, meanings, and uses of Tudor horror, mainly by concentrating on the Tower of London, which during the nineteenth century evolved into an embodiment of the history of England, and the site of continuous debate and contest over access to, and ownership of, the Tudors.Less
This chapter discusses Tudorism in popular historical culture during the nineteenth century. First, it briefly delineates the apparent streamlining of the Tudor era into a broadly Whig and liberal-radical culture of progress and improvement and the confident interpretation of history. It then focuses on the evolution of popular Tudorism with its emphasis upon, and uses of, horror and its relations to modernity and urbanisation: what Dickens described as the ‘attraction of repulsion’ in horror. It traces developments in representations, meanings, and uses of Tudor horror, mainly by concentrating on the Tower of London, which during the nineteenth century evolved into an embodiment of the history of England, and the site of continuous debate and contest over access to, and ownership of, the Tudors.
