Author: Stefano Harney File Type: pdf

Author: Colin Harrison File Type: pdf American Culture in the 1990s focuses on the dramatic cultural transformations of the last decade of the millennium. Lodged between the fall of Communism and the outbreak of the War on Terror, the 1990s was witness to Americas expanding influence across the world but also a period of anxiety and social conflict. National traumas such as the Los Angeles riots, the Oklahoma City bombing and the impeachment of President Clinton lend an apocalyptic air to the decade, but the book looks beyond this to a wider context to identify new voices emerging in the nation.This is one of the first attempts to bring together developments taking place across a range of different fields from Microsoft to the Internet, from blank fiction to gangsta rap, from abject art to new independent cinema, and from postfeminism to posthumanism. Students of American culture and general readers will find this a lively and illuminating introduction to a complex and immensely varied decade.**

Author: Robert Miklitsch File Type: pdf What happens when Theodor Adorno, the champion of high, classical artists such as Beethoven, comes into contact with the music of Chuck Berry, the de facto king of rock n roll? In a series of readings and meditations, Robert Miklitsch investigates the postmodern nexus between elite and popular culture as it occurs in the audiovisual fields of film, music, and television ranging from Gershwin to gangsta rap, Tarantino to Tongues Untied, Tony Soprano to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Miklitsch argues that the aim of critical theory in the new century will be to describe and explain these commodities in ever greater phenomenological detail without losing touch with those evaluative criteria that have historically sustained both Kulturkritik and classical aesthetics. **Review The undercutting of the distinction between classical and rock music is one of the great insights of this book. Miklitsch sees how classical music is not really autonomous in the way that someone that Adorno would claim. It instead, suffers from the same heteronomy that infects rock music. By working to eliminate the barrier between high and low, the author helps to open us up to a whole new way of experiencing the aesthetic, a mode of experiencing that we must adopt in order to exist within contemporary culture. From the Back Cover What happens when Theodor Adorno, the champion of high, classical artists such as Beethoven, comes into contact with the music of Chuck Berry, the de facto king of rock n roll? In a series of readings and meditations, Robert Miklitsch investigates the postmodern nexus between elite and popular culture as it occurs in the audiovisual fields of film, music, and televisionranging from Gershwin to gangsta rap, Tarantino to Tongues Untied, Tony Soprano to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Miklitsch argues that the aim of critical theory in the new century will be to describe and explain these commodities in ever greater phenomenological detail without losing touch with those evaluative criteria that have historically sustained both Kulturkritik and classical aesthetics. Robert Miklitsch loves popular music and the movies, and hes not afraid to theorize about it. This intriguing book makes theorists of the popular accessible at the same time that it makes rock and film even more fascinating. Krin Gabbard, author of Black Magic White Hollywood and African American Culture The undercutting of the distinction between classical and rock music is one of the great insights of this book. Miklitsch sees how classical music is not really autonomous in the way that someone that Adorno would claim. It, instead, suffers from the same heteronomy that infects rock music. By working to eliminate the barrier between high and low, the author helps to open us up to a whole new way of experiencing the aesthetic, a mode of experiencing that we must adopt in order to exist within contemporary culture. Todd McGowan, author of The End of Dissatisfaction? Jacques Lacan and the Emerging Society of Enjoyment

Author: Marta Bosch-Vilarrubias File Type: pdf Post-911 Representations of Arab Men by Arab American Women Writers Affirmation and Resistance examines the portrayals of Arab masculinities in novels published after September 11, 2001, by women of Arab descent in the United States. The book provides a historical account of the mainstream representations of Arab masculinities in the United States, using them as a contrast to the realities experienced by Arab men in the American diaspora. Considering the construction of male and female Arab American identities, this book illustrates the role of feminism in Arab American literature written by women and its influence on womens depictions of Arab men. Through an analysis of representative works by Diana Abu-Jaber, Laila Halaby, and Randa Jarrar, among others, this volume demonstrates how Arab American womens anti-racist and anti-sexist struggles inform their nuanced portrayals of Arab men. This book will be essential for professors and students of ethnic American literatures in general and Arab American studies in particular, as well as for those interested in womens studies and masculinity studies. **About the Author Marta Bosch-Vilarrubias received her PhD in English from the University of Barcelona, where she is currently an adjunct professor. She has extensively published on Arab American studies and the representation of masculinities in Arab American literature written by women. Her publications include Transitory Masculinities in Post-911 Arab American Literature Written by Women in Alternative Masculinities for a Changing World (2014), Contemporary Terrorist Bodies The (De-)Construction of Arab Masculinities in the United States in Embodying Masculinities Towards a History of the Male Body in U.S. Culture and Literature (Lang, 2013), Post911 Representations of Arab Masculinities by Arab American Women Writers Criticism or Praise? in Men in Color Racialized Masculinities in U.S. Literature and Cinema (2011), and The Representation of Fatherhood by the Arab Diaspora in the United States in Lectora Journal of Women and Textuality (2008).