Arthur Asa Berger USA Pop

Annotation

This book, written in an accessible style and illustrated with drawings by the author and numerous photographs, uses semiotics, psychoanalytic theory, and other cultural studies disciplines to analyze pop culture and everyday life in America. Each chapter contains numerous quotations of interest from writers and thinkers of all kinds, giving the book a documentary quality. Among the topics discussed are the social, psychological, and cultural significance of blue jeans, women's handbags, hairstyles, hip hop fashion, nudism, wrestling, Donald Duck, and many other aspects of popular culture and everyday life in America. The book will be of use as a secondary text for courses in pop culture, cultural studies, fashion studies, American culture and society, material culture, and, since it is written in a lively and entertaining style, for the general reader.