The McDonaldization thesis argued that contemporary life is succumbing to the standardisation, flexibility and predictability of fast-food service. Restisting McDonaldization engages in a critical appraisal of this thesis. Among the topics discusses are: the rationalization of modern life - the effects of increasing cultural commodification - the ......
Critical Ventures in the Culture of Social Relations
One of a series which promotes scholarship about the experiences of sexual minorities, this book explores the social and cultural significance of the private. The author proposes that, far from a universal right, privacy is limited by one's racial - and sexual - minority status.
Critical Ventures in the Culture of Social Relations
One of a series which promotes scholarship about the experiences of sexual minorities, this book explores the social and cultural significance of the private. The author proposes that, far from a universal right, privacy is limited by one's racial - and sexual - minority status.
The past decade has seen American culture divided by debates over social identity, public morality, communal values and freedom of expression. A key focus of these discussions has been the role of visual arts in public life. Here five critics and two artists show the ways that this debate has reshaped our view of American culture.
This book goes beyond Baudrillard's writings on consumer objects, the Gulf War and America, to identify the fundamental logic that underpins his writings. It does this through a series of close readings of his main texts, paying particular attention to the form and internal coherence of his arguments. The book is written for all those who want a ......
Ana Mendieta, a Cuban-born artist who lived in exile in the United States, was one of the most provocative and complex personalities of the 1970s' artworld. In Where Is Ana Mendieta? art historian Jane Blocker provides an in-depth critical analysis of Mendieta's diverse body of work. Although her untimely death in 1985 remains shrouded in ......
Museums have become the epicentre of America's culture wars. Whereas fierce public debates once focused on work by upstart artists, the scrutiny has now expanded to mainstream cultural institutions and the ideas they present.
In recent years, Peter N. Stearns has established himself as a historian of American emotional life. Now Stearns reveals the dichotomy at the heart of the national character: a self-indulgent hedonism and the famed American informality on the one hand, and a repressiveness on the other.
