Popular Culture category: 4839 books

This book explores the emergence of "lifestyle" in the US, first as a term that has become an organizing principle for the self and for the structure of everyday life, and later as a pervasive form of media that encompasses a variety of domestic and self-improvement genres, from newspaper columns...

Anthropology has two main tasks: to understand what it is to be human and to examine how humanity is manifested differently in the diversity of culture. These tasks have gained new impetus from the extraordinary rise of the digital. This book brings together several key anthropologists working with...

This key textbook traces the development of advertising from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, providing connections with the past that illuminate present developments and point to future possibilities. Chapters take a variety of theoretical approaches to address four main themes: how advertising...

This book explores common representations and experiences of American fitness. It takes women’s experiences as the center of inquiry toward an understanding of the function of fitness in our lives and in our culture-at-large. Ranging from 1968 to the present, from Jane Fonda to WiiFit, from revolution...

Every society has its lineup of wicked, unethical characters—real or fictional—who are regarded as villainous. This book explores how Western societies have used villains to sort insiders from outsiders and establish behavioral norms to support harmony and well-being. There are three parts: nature...

Through reference to over six hundred scenes from film and television—as well as a diverse and cross-disciplinary academic bibliography—Masturbation in Pop Culture investigates the role that masturbation serves within narratives while simultaneously mirroring our complicated relationship with...

A collection of articles spanning more than a decade woven together to create the misguided anti-love story of a young man learning about relationships and the opposite sex through music, movies, and television. From music industry professional, SW Hammond, comes The Mixtape Manifesto:...

Sylvia Wynter’s work is distinctively Caribbean. From her exciting and rigorous interventions of ‘folk culture’ and its profound meaning for the symbolic universe of Caribbean reality, creative writing and the nature of Caribbean culture, to her present genealogical critique of Western humanism,...

Edited by Kris Rutten, Stefaan Blancke, and Ronald Soetaert, Perspectives on Science and Culture explores the intersection between scientific understanding and cultural representation from an interdisciplinary perspective. Contributors to the volume analyze representations of science and scientific...

This volume brings you through the origins, history, customs, and fascinating tales behind the intricate and perplexing labyrinth of customs and taboos, and the art and science of Chinese food culture.

This significant, insightful, entertaining, and educational Three Volume Compendium uses personally reviewed historic 1960s and 1970s Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll Cultural events to reveal and reflect the spirit of the times; and was designed to be of beneficial use as: A factual reference and...

Our daily lives, our culture and our politics are now shaped by the digital condition as large numbers of people involve themselves in contentious negotiations of meaning in ever more dimensions of life, from the trivial to the profound. They are making use of the capacities of complex communication...

How do we come to know the world around us? What about worlds apart from our own—outer space, distant cultures, or even long-past eras of history? Engaging Smithsonian Objects through Science, History, and the Arts explores these questions and suggests an answer: we come to know our world and worlds...

The day the towers fell, indelible images of plummeting rubble, fire, and falling bodies were imprinted in the memories of people around the world. Images that were caught in the media loop after the disaster and coverage of the attack, its aftermath, and the wars that followed reflected a pervasive...