Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society since Gorbachev Review

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Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society since Gorbachev ReviewThis book has the rare quality of being a classroom text as well as a report. Today's Russia. Pyramid schemes, religion, rave parties,rock music, detective stories, cinema, pets, porn, graffiti, tattooing... the carnival of crazy New Russia to be read overnight. A shock.Consuming Russia: Popular Culture, Sex, and Society since Gorbachev OverviewWith the collapse of the Soviet empire in the late 1980s, the Russian social landscape has undergone its most dramatic changes since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, turning the once bland and monolithic state-run marketplace into a virtual maze of specialty shops—from sushi bars to discotheques and tattoo parlors. In Consuming Russia editor Adele Marie Barker presents the first book-length volume to explore the sweeping cultural transformation taking place in the new Russia. The contributors examine how the people of Russia reconcile prerevolutionary elite culture—as well as the communist legacy—with the influx of popular influences from the West to build a society that no longer relies on a single dominant discourse and embraces the multiplicities of both public and private Russian life. Barker brings together Russian and American scholars from anthropology, history, literature, political science, sociology, and cultural studies. These experts fuse theoretical analysis with ethnographic research to analyze the rise of popular culture, covering topics as varied as post-Soviet rave culture, rock music, children and advertising, pyramid schemes, tattooing, pets, and spectator sports. They consider detective novels, anecdotes, issues of feminism and queer sexuality, nostalgia, the Russian cinema, and graffiti. Discussions of pornography, religious cults, and the deployment of Soviet ideological symbols as post-Soviet kitsch also help to demonstrate how the rebuilding of Russia's political and economic infrastructure has been influenced by its citizens' cultural production and consumption. This volume will appeal to those engaged with post-Soviet studies, to anyone interested in the state of Russian society, and to readers more generally involved with the study of popular culture.Contributors. Adele Marie Barker, Eliot Borenstein, Svetlana Boym, John Bushnell, Nancy Condee, Robert Edelman, Laurie Essig, Julia P. Friedman, Paul W. Goldschmidt, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Anna Krylova, Susan Larsen, Catharine Theimer Nepomnyaschy, Theresa Sabonis-Chafee, Tim Scholl, Adam Weiner, Alexei Yurchak, Elizabeth Kristofovich Zelensky

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The History of Holland (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) Review

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The History of Holland (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) ReviewAlmost one third of this book is devoted to background, such as geography, econony, political system, and society. It is space and time well spent. The entire book reads quite easily, and I often had a hard time putting it down.The History of Holland (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) OverviewHolland was once a superpower upon whose empire the sun never set. Today it is on the leading edge of social change. This history of Holland, from its earliest beginnings to the present day, provides the most up-to-date survey of modern Dutch history, including the current Dutch approach to a number of social issues, such as the welfare state, the environment, socialized medicine, and the role of the military in the post-Cold War world. Containing a wealth of current information and statistics, this work will help the reader to understand the Dutch both within the historical context in which Holland exists and as world leaders in social change as we approach the twenty-first century. This engagingly written history provides a contemporary overview of Holland's geography, economy, political system, and society. Chapters arranged chronologically trace the history and culture of the nation from the Ice Age to the new post-Cold War world. Chapters on recent Dutch history show how Holland has claimed a leading role in social change: the Dutch have authorized euthanasia, socialized medicine, and legalized soft drugs. A selection of brief biographical sketches will introduce the reader to many of the important Dutch personalities throughout Holland's history, and a bibliographical essay will help the researcher to locate recommended books and other materials for further reading.

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Intercultural Communication: A Global Reader Review

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Intercultural Communication: A Global Reader ReviewI was very happy with this order. It came right on time for my class and it was worth the money as it is a very interesting book to read.Intercultural Communication: A Global Reader Overview
Intercultural Communication: A Global Reader contains 36 articles showcasing the development and diversity of intercultural communication theories in countries such as China, Africa, the United States, New Zealand, Mexico, Egypt, and others. Themes and topics discussed include identity and communication, intercultural verbal and nonverbal processes and interactions, relationships, and ethics.

The Reader may be used as a stand-alone text, an excellent companion to Fred E. Jandt's textbook An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community, Fourth Edition, or in conjunction with other texts.The book is intended for the introductory intercultural communication course and is also of value for many courses in cultural studies, sociology, and anthropology.










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Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture Review

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Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture ReviewWhy more people don't know his name is beyond me. Maybe its because of his haircut?
In all seriousness, reading the man's work is like waking up and realizing that you've been dreaming. He lifts the veil off the world we live in, the media stream that we swim in, and he illuminates its basic nature better than anyone I have ever read. He also has the great advantage of not being a "fogey", in other words he's not mystified by popular culture, he UNDERSTANDS it. He KNOWS why we like certain videogames and movies and doesn't berate the world for it, rather he simply looks at the underpinnings of those desires. Great stuff. Read all his works - and then visit VIDEOTOPIA because Professor Jenkins references it and it's cool.Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture OverviewHop on Pop showcases the work of a new generation of scholars—from fields such as media studies, literature, cinema, and cultural studies—whose writing has been informed by their ongoing involvement with popular culture and who draw insight from their lived experiences as critics, fans, and consumers. Proceeding from their deep political commitment to a new kind of populist grassroots politics, these writerschallenge old modes of studying the everyday. As they rework traditional scholarly language, they search for new ways to write about our complex and compelling engagements with the politics and pleasures of popular culture and sketch a new and lively vocabulary for the field of cultural studies.The essays cover a wide and colorful array of subjects including pro wrestling, the computer games Myst and Doom, soap operas, baseball card collecting, the Tour de France, karaoke, lesbian desire in the Wizard of Oz, Internet fandom for the series Babylon 5, and the stress-management industry. Broader themes examined include the origins of popular culture, the aesthetics and politics of performance, and the social andcultural processes by which objects and practices are deemed tasteful or tasteless. The commitment that binds the contributors is to an emergent perspective in cultural studies, one that engages with popular culture as the culture that "sticks to the skin," that becomes so much a part of us that it becomes increasingly difficult to examine it from a distance. By refusing to deny or rationalize their own often contradictory identifications with popular culture, the contributors ensure that the volume as a whole reflects the immediacy and vibrancy of its objects of study.Hop on Pop will appeal to those engaged in the study of popular culture, American studies, cultural studies, cinema and visual studies, as well as to the general educated reader.Contributors.John Bloom, Gerry Bloustein, Aniko Bodroghkozy, Diane Brooks, Peter Chvany, Elana Crane, Alexander Doty, Rob Drew, Stephen Duncombe, Nick Evans, Eric Freedman, Joy Fuqua, Tony Grajeda, Katherine Green, John Hartley, Heather Hendershot, Henry Jenkins, Eithne Johnson, Louis Kaplan, Maria Koundoura, Sharon Mazer, Anna McCarthy, Tara McPherson, Angela Ndalianis, Edward O'Neill, Catherine Palmer, Roberta Pearson, Elayne Rapping, Eric Schaefer, Jane Shattuc, Greg Smith, Ellen Strain, Matthew Tinkhom, William Uricchio, Amy Villarego, Robyn Warhol, Charles Weigl, Alan Wexelblat, Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Nabeel Zuberi

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Team Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy Review

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Team Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy ReviewC. Richard King and Charles Springwood, with their edited collection, bring to the forefront the cultural and social intricacies, animosities, and stereotypes associated with the Native American team mascot debate. The work "traces the (re)inventions of self and society through Native American mascots and the cultural artifacts, public sentiments, and ritual performances...associated with them." (1)
The essays are very informative and help clarify why certain practices have been misappropriated by the dominant "Euro-American" society. The authors prey upon the same themes in almost every essay, racial stereotypes, misappropriations of cultural practices, and displacement of Native American cultures and histories. Moreover, it appears that some of the authors take umbrage with the fact that certain Native American tribes actually support the use of their images as mascots. In their fabulous discussion of the Seminole Tribe and Florida State University, King and Springwood particularly illustrate their indignation in regards to the backing of the Chief Osceola mascot by the Seminole Tribe. The authors believe that members of the Seminole Tribe should quit "playing Indian" with the whites and work to challenge the misuse of Chief Osceola and the Seminole Tribe's identities and culture. King and Springwood also worryingly rely on a third-person account to buttress their argument that Florida State's appropriation of Native American imagery for use as a mascot only furthers popular stereotypes and prejudices.
Team Spirits is a work of activism. The collection of essays are designed inform readers of the complexities surrounding the Native American mascot controversy and hopefully reconsider their thoughts and conceptions of Native Americans. Perhaps the most important point of the text is that the appropriation of and misuse of Native American images reveal "much more about the non-Indian people and institutions that invented them than they have about Native American cultures and histories." (328) Most of the authors ignore the fact that mascots are not intended to glorify a certain historical or cultural distinctness. Many mascots were created in informal meetings without much regard to historical and cultural settings or identities. The authors of the essays expect mascots to lionize certain aspects of a locale's cultural and historical heritage. In reality, this just is not the case. However, Native American mascots are held to a higher standard as they should be and the complexities and controversies surrounding the issue show no signs of diminishing. Additionally, the Native American mascot controversy overshadows the argument that Native Americans have been perhaps the finest athletes the United States has ever had.
King and Springwood's effort certainly will not end the debate; it does provide analysis and understanding for those unfamiliar with the true subtle intricacies forever associated with Native Americans and their white conquerors.
Team Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy OverviewA growing controversy in recent years has arisen around the use and abuse of Native American team mascots. The Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs, Florida State Seminoles, and so forth-these are just a few of the images and names popularly associated with Native Americans that are still used as mascots by professional sports teams, dozens of universities, and countless high schools. This practice, a troubling legacy of Native–Euro-American relations in the United States, has sparked heated debates and intense protests that continue to escalate.

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