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Author : Edward C. Stewart Publisher : Nicholas Brealey Page : 315 pages File Size : 40,48 MB Release : 2011-06-24 Category : Social Science ISBN : 0983955832
A fully revised edition of the seminal classic This classic study was originally written by Edward Stewart in 1972 and has become a seminal work in the field of intercultural relations. In this edition, Stewart and Milton J. Bennett have greatly expanded the analysis of American cultural patterns by introducing new cross-cultural comparisons and drawing on recent reseach on value systems, perception psychology, cultural anthropology, and intercultural communication. Beginning with a discussion of the issues relative to contact between people of different cultures, the authors examine the nature of cultural assumptions and values as a framework for cross-cultural analysis. They then analyze the human perceptual process, consider the influence of language on culture, and discuss nonverbal behavior. Central to the book is an analysis of American culture constructed along four dimentions: form of activity, form of social relations, perceptions of the world, and perception of the self. American cultural traits are isolated out, analyzed, and compared with parallel characteristics of other cultures. Finally, the cultural dimentions of communication and their implications for cross-cultural interaction are examined.
Author : Christopher J Smith Publisher : University of Illinois Press Page : 353 pages File Size : 42,77 MB Release : 2013-09-16 Category : Music ISBN : 0252095049
The Creolization of American Culture examines the artworks, letters, sketchbooks, music collection, and biography of the painter William Sidney Mount (1807–1868) as a lens through which to see the multiethnic antebellum world that gave birth to blackface minstrelsy. As a young man living in the multiethnic working-class community of New York's Lower East Side, Mount took part in the black-white musical interchange his paintings depict. An avid musician and tune collector as well as an artist, he was the among the first to depict vernacular fiddlers, banjo players, and dancers precisely and sympathetically. His close observations and meticulous renderings provide rich evidence of performance techniques and class-inflected paths of musical apprenticeship that connected white and black practitioners. Looking closely at the bodies and instruments Mount depicts in his paintings as well as other ephemera, Christopher J. Smith traces the performance practices of African American and Anglo-European music-and-dance traditions while recovering the sounds of that world. Further, Smith uses Mount's depictions of black and white music-making to open up fresh perspectives on cross-ethnic cultural transference in Northern and urban contexts, showing how rivers, waterfronts, and other sites of interracial interaction shaped musical practices by transporting musical culture from the South to the North and back. The "Africanization" of Anglo-Celtic tunes created minstrelsy's musical "creole synthesis," a body of melodic and rhythmic vocabularies, repertoires, tunes, and musical techniques that became the foundation of American popular music. Reading Mount's renderings of black and white musicians against a background of historical sites and practices of cross-racial interaction, Smith offers a sophisticated interrogation and reinterpretation of minstrelsy, significantly broadening historical views of black-white musical exchange.
Exploring television at once as a technological medium, an economic system, a facet of democracy, and a part of everyday life, this landmark text uses numerous sidebars and case studies to demonstrate the past, immediate, and far-reaching effects of American culture on television--and television's influence on American culture. Arranged topically, the book provides a broad historical overview of television while also honing in on such finer points as the formal attributes of its various genres and its role in gender and racial identity formation.
As garment workers, longshoremen, autoworkers, sharecroppers and clerks took to the streets, striking and organizing unions in the midst of the Depression, artists, writers and filmmakers joined the insurgent social movement by creating a cultural front. Disney cartoonists walked picket lines, and Billie Holiday sand 'Strange Fruit' at the left-wing cabaret, Café Society. Duke Ellington produced a radical musical, Jump for Joy, New York garment workers staged the legendary Broadway revue Pins and Needles, and Orson Welles and his Mercury players took their labor operas and anti-fascist Shakespeare to Hollywood and made Citizen Kane. A major reassessment of US cultural history, The Cultural Front is a vivid mural of this extraordinary upheaval which reshaped American culture in the twentieth century.
The Civil War retains a powerful hold on the American imagination, with each generation since 1865 reassessing its meaning and importance in American life. This volume collects twelve essays by leading Civil War scholars who demonstrate how the meanings of the Civil War have changed over time. The essays move among a variety of cultural and political arenas--from public monuments to parades to political campaigns; from soldiers' memoirs to textbook publishing to children's literature--in order to reveal important changes in how the memory of the Civil War has been employed in American life. Setting the politics of Civil War memory within a wide social and cultural landscape, this volume recovers not only the meanings of the war in various eras, but also the specific processes by which those meanings have been created. By recounting the battles over the memory of the war during the last 140 years, the contributors offer important insights about our identities as individuals and as a nation. Contributors: David W. Blight, Yale University Thomas J. Brown, University of South Carolina Alice Fahs, University of California, Irvine Gary W. Gallagher, University of Virginia J. Matthew Gallman, University of Florida Patrick J. Kelly, University of Texas, San Antonio Stuart McConnell, Pitzer College James M. McPherson, Princeton University Joan Waugh, University of California, Los Angeles LeeAnn Whites, University of Missouri Jon Wiener, University of California, Irvine
A third edition of this book is now available. Now in a fully revised and updated edition, this concise and insightful book explores the ways American popular products such as movies, music, television programs, fast food, sports, and even clothing styles have molded and continue to influence modern globalization. Lane Crothers offers a thoughtful examination of both the appeal of American products worldwide and the fear and rejection they induce in many people and nations around the world. Concluding with a projection of the future impact of American popular culture, this book makes a powerful argument for its central role in shaping global politics and economic development.
This unique book paints a revealing picture of America and its people for those foreigners who will benefit from a better understanding of America. It will also inform Americans who want to learn more about the U.S. and how it compares to other countries around the world. World traveler and teacher Lance Johnson studies cultural differences and the difficulties foreigners have understanding crazy America, as some call it. Foreigners might come to the U.S. to work for American employers, to open branch offices or factories for their homeland employers, to start their own businesses, or go to school. Others might work for American organizations in their homelands or have American teachers there. An understanding of American culture and language will contribute to their success. As the title suggests, this book is for "foreigners." Dictionaries say they are people who are not citizens of a country. For this book they are defined as anyone who is not sufficiently familiar with American culture to achieve success. This includes the multitudes of foreign-born, naturalized citizens who have lived in the U.S. for years and still struggle with the ways and the language. A foreigner could also be a first-generation American whose immigrant parents did not fully expose their children to American culture and they now pay the price in mainstream U.S. There are lots of other examples, too. FORMAT Each of the 26 chapters' brush strokes contributes to the final painting of what America is all about. The chapters are grouped into four books. (An all-in-one book is also available.) *Book 1 (A to G) - America's Heritage. This defines the historical background of why America and its people became who and what they are today. *Book 2 (H to T, this book) - America's Culture. This section describes everyday life in America, ranging from customs and etiquette, to what's on the minds of Americans, to education. Practical advice is provided for the one million foreign applicants who seek and gain admission to U.S. colleges and universities each year. Pointers are provided on the cultural differences students should expect, and how to get the most from their education once enrolled. *Book 3 (U to X) - America's Business. This explains the complex business environment, operations, and people-related customs and why the U.S. is an economic juggernaut. Information is provided for starting a business of your own in the U.S. as well as how to increase the chances of your getting hired by an American firm in the U.S. or abroad. *Book 4 (Y to Z) - America's Language. These chapters discuss practical ways to improve English grammar, speech, writing, communication skills, and reducing accents. Common English grammar and speech errors made by foreigners are identified and simple tips are provided for overcoming them. ENDORSEMENTS "I congratulate you on writing this timely work. This will promote better mutual understanding between America and Asia." - Tommy Koh, Singapore Ambassador to the U.N. and U.S. "Your book covers a broad range of topics that I am sure many...will find very useful." - Clark T. Randt, Jr., U.S. Ambassador to China. "I greatly appreciate your efforts in sharing with other people your opinion and experience on the exchanges between different peoples and cultures. It is so important for us to better understand each other while striving to build a better world for all." - Zhou Wenzhong, China Ambassador to U.S. " I found this book refreshingly different from the general run of books in this genre." - Mohammad Vazeeruddin, India journalist. "The A to Z chapters are nicely written and...the language is simple and lucid." - Jay Gajjar, India language professor. "I love this book's generous use of helpful hints. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to learn more about America like I did." - Sarah Kim, Korean American business owner.
The 1970s was one of the most culturally vibrant periods in American history. This book discusses the dominant cultural forms of the 1970s - fiction and poetry; television and drama; film and visual culture; popular music and style; public space and spectacle - and the decade's most influential practitioners and texts: from Toni Morrison to All in the Family, from Diane Arbus to Bruce Springsteen, from M.A.S.H. to Taxi Driver and from disco divas to Vietnam protesters. In response to those who consider the seventies the time of disco, polyester and narcissism, this book rewrites the critical engagement with one of America's most misunderstood decades.Key Features*Focused case studies featuring key texts and influential writers, artists, directors and musicians*Chronology of 1970s American Culture*Bibliographies for each chapter and a general bibliography on 1970s Culture*14 black-and-white illustrations
Author : Claude S. Fischer Publisher : University of Chicago Press Page : 523 pages File Size : 37,46 MB Release : 2010-05-15 Category : Social Science ISBN : 0226251454
Our nation began with the simple phrase, “We the People.” But who were and are “We”? Who were we in 1776, in 1865, or 1968, and is there any continuity in character between the we of those years and the nearly 300 million people living in the radically different America of today? With Made in America, Claude S. Fischer draws on decades of historical, psychological, and social research to answer that question by tracking the evolution of American character and culture over three centuries. He explodes myths—such as that contemporary Americans are more mobile and less religious than their ancestors, or that they are more focused on money and consumption—and reveals instead how greater security and wealth have only reinforced the independence, egalitarianism, and commitment to community that characterized our people from the earliest years. Skillfully drawing on personal stories of representative Americans, Fischer shows that affluence and social progress have allowed more people to participate fully in cultural and political life, thus broadening the category of “American” —yet at the same time what it means to be an American has retained surprising continuity with much earlier notions of American character. Firmly in the vein of such classics as The Lonely Crowd and Habits of the Heart—yet challenging many of their conclusions—Made in America takes readers beyond the simplicity of headlines and the actions of elites to show us the lives, aspirations, and emotions of ordinary Americans, from the settling of the colonies to the settling of the suburbs.
An emerging cult classic about America's cultural meltdown—and a surprising solution. A prophetic examination of Western decline, The Twilight of American Culture provides one of the most caustic and surprising portraits of American society to date. Whether examining the corruption at the heart of modern politics, the "Rambification" of popular entertainment, or the collapse of our school systems, Morris Berman suspects that there is little we can do as a society to arrest the onset of corporate Mass Mind culture. Citing writers as diverse as de Toqueville and DeLillo, he cogently argues that cultural preservation is a matter of individual conscience, and discusses how classical learning might triumph over political correctness with the rise of a "a new monastic individual"—a person who, much like the medieval monk, is willing to retreat from conventional society in order to preserve its literary and historical treasures. "Brilliantly observant, deeply thoughtful ....lucidly argued."—Christian Science Monitor