American Popular Culture – serie

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Mystery and detective novels are popular fictional genres within Western literature. As such, they provide a wealth of information about popular art and culture. When the genre develops within various cultures, it adopts, and proceeds to dominate, native expressions and imagery. American mystery and detective novels appeared in the late nineteenth century. This reference provides a selective guide to the important criticism of American mystery and detective novels and presents general features of the genre and its historical development over the past two centuries. Critical approaches covered in the volume include story as game, images, myth criticism, formalism and structuralism, psychonalysis, Marxism and more. Comparisons with related genres, such as gothic, suspense, gangster, and postmodern novels, illustrate similarities and differences important to the understanding of the unique components of mystery and detective fiction.The guide is divided into five major sections: a brief history, related genres, criticism, authors, and reference. This organization accounts for the literary history and types of novels stemming from the mystery and detective genre. A chronology provides a helpful overview of the development and transformation of the genre.

This reference traces the historical background of editorial cartooning and presents works that chronicle the history and criticize the aesthetics of the art. It also describes anthologies and exhibition catalogs that reprint editorial cartoons, and provides a list of libraries, museums, and historical societies which house originals and photocopies or clippings of editorial cartoons. This expansive volume examines the American editorial cartoon from its beginnings in 1747 into the second Clinton administration. It fills a gap in the literature, providing comprehensive information on a field of growing interest to scholars and collectors.This reference guide studies the evolution of editorial cartooning and places it in its historical context and provides appreciation and criticism of the cartoons presented. In addition to political cartoons, underground, radical, and propaganda cartoons are also discussed in this volume. The appendixes offer important cross-reference tools such as a chronology and include listings of selected historical periodicals, theses, and dissertations covering political cartoons. This work will be of value to a broad spectrum of readers—from collectors to scholars—and is suitable for many fields of study.

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The second of two volumes on the relationship between popular religion and the self-help tradition in American culture, this book continues chronologically where the first left off. As with the first volume, this work focuses on the intersection of American history and popular religion and is intended as an introductory interpretive guide to major self-help figures and movements with origins in popular religious movements. This volume spans from Romanticism, the Gilded Age, and the history of Christian Science, with discussions of Mary Baker Patterson, Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, and Mary Baker Eddy, through Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. Peale and Schuller, with the exception of Evangelist Billy Graham, constitute the public face of mainstream American Protestantism and bring this two-volume study to its conclusion in the second half of the 20th century.This reference will serve as a valuable research tool for American religion and popular culture scholars. Together with the first volume, Self-Help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture, these two meticulously researched volumes clearly define and present the broad scope of the self-help tradition as it pervades American culture and as it developed and was influenced by popular religion. An extensive bibliography is included.

The purpose of this work is to provide scholars and students of popular culture with an evaluative survey of research materials about radio. . . . An interesting introduction provides an overview of radio's history in the U.S. The bibliographic essays throughout the work will hold the attention of readers and cover topics such as networks and station histories, radio drama, news, music, comedy and variety, and sports. All users will discover important sources of information and will appreciate the well-written bibliographic essays. Booklist Following a brief historical overview on radio and its role in American life, chapters offer informative and, within the confines of the format, lively and enjoyable bibliographic essays on individual facets of radio as an entertainment and information medium. . . . Highly recommended. ChoiceIntended to be an evaluative survey of bibliographical material on the history and development of radio and radio programming in America, this guide identifies and discusses more than 500 written sources relating to radio music, drama, comedy and variety, news, sports and more. An introductory chapter thoroughly analyzes the historical development of the medium--from its inception during the pioneer era, to the network era (radio's Golden Age), to the decline of radio in the 1950s, and finally to the radio renaissance--based largely, on narrowcasting--that began in the 1960s and continues to the present. Greenfield also examines the formation of the FCC, focuses on radio's losing battle with television--the main reason for its decline beginning in 1949--and provides a cogent analysis of the creative thinking underlying not only the concept of today's narrowcasting, but of the current ascendency of the local station as well. Also addresses are the Press/Radio war of the 1930s, the rise of radio drama, and the enormous influence of rock and roll music on the evolution of radio programming after World War II. A chapter is devoted to networks and station histories and another to issues such as women in radio, advertising, religious broadcasting, and armed forces radio. A list of selected archival collections, radio organizations and associations, and an index complete the volume.Primarily designed for students, scholars, and researchers in the fields of broadcasting and popular culture, this reference deserves a place in university libraries but also has a wealth of information of interest to radio and television professionals. And, because its resources include popular and fan materials as well as standard academic and professional publications, Radio: A Reference Guide provides an insightful overview for any informed generalist with an interest in this important facet of American popular culture.

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An excellent and exhaustive expansion of Coleman's 20-page chapter in Volume 3 of the valuable Handbook of American Popular Culture. . . . Contents include a preface, introduction, chapters on history of magic, principles and appreciation, manuals on performance, relation to the other `arts,' biographies, and appendixes of historical dates, periodicals, directories, research collections, and dealers. Chapters contain very thorough bibliographies and there are author and subject indexes. It is impossible to imagine a more thorough guide to magic. Choice The work as a whole is an extremely valuable compilation of, and commentary on, nearly 1,000 titles dealing with magic, conjuring, and tricks that fool the eye. . . . [It is] a superb addition to any library's collection of books on the history, psychology, and techniques of magic. Reference Books BulletinThis reference guide provides a comprehensive view of magic, focusing on its history, psychology, techniques, and aesthetics. The text is in the form of topical bibliographical essays with additional theoretical remarks expressing Coleman's personal philosophy of conjuring. The work begins with a description of outstanding histories of magic and goes on to elucidate some of the major bibliographic sources on the principles of psychology and showmanship which separate the master conjurer from the amateur. Subsequent chapters evaluate manuals on the execution of magic, including all categories from card magic to stage illusions and telepathy.

Newspapers provides a historical context for the books discussed in its readable essays and will be invaluable for anyone researching the history or role of newspapers in American life. Booklist Professionals and scholars will find Newspapers: A Reference Guide useful. In it Schwarzlose supplies a thorough list of published works on newspaper topics. AdweekThis reference guide provides a broad-based and comprehensive introduction to the literature about and by newspapers, and views them as multi-faceted sociocultural phenomena. Following an introduction that outlines the history of American newspapers from their European antecedents to their forseeable future, the book examines the extensive literature on the history of newspapers in its regional and period dimensions, and biographical material on newspaper personalities, representing all levels and periods of journalists. This carefully constructed sourcebook includes an extensive discussion of the literature on the techniques and theories of producing newspapers, a section on the collections and anthologies of newspapers and their writers, and a thorough examination of the voluminous and rapidly changing literature on some of the critical issues facing newspapers today.

Here is the first reference guide to the major sources for the study of recreational vehicles, boats, and aircraft in the context of American history and popular culture. It provides brief histories of the various types of vehicles and bibliographic essays on published and unpublished sources for further study. Reference works, histories, fiction, and specialized journals relating to the topic of recreational travel are described and analyzed. Appendixes list numerous museums, trade associations, and specialized organizations concerned with leisure travel, as well as films and video tapes.

This comprehensive reference guide reviews the literature concerning the impact of the automobile on American social, economic, and political history. Covering the complete history of the automobile to date, twelve chapters of bibliographic essays describe the important works in a series of related topics and provide broad thematic contexts. This work includes general histories of the automobile, the industry it spawned and labor-management relations, as well as biographies of famous automotive personalities. Focusing on books concerned with various social aspects, chapters discuss such issues as the car's influence on family life, youth, women, the elderly, minorities, literature, and leisure and recreation. Berger has also included works that investigate the government's role in aiding and regulating the automobile, with sections on roads and highways, safety, and pollution. The guide concludes with an overview of reference works and periodicals in the field and a description of selected research collections.The Automobile in American History and Culture provides a resource with which to examine the entire field and its structure. Popular culture scholars and enthusiasts involved in automotive research will appreciate the extensive scope of this reference. Cross-referenced throughout, it will serve as a valuable research tool.

Since the Garden of Eden, humanity has been concerned with shelter. Yet housing means different things to different people. This work is a comprehensive, historical reference guide that reviews housing concepts and issues. It introduces the reader to the current body of literature and seminal work in housing from a multidisciplinary perspective. The nature of the topic is multifaceted, fragmented, and demanding of serious study from diverse disciplines—this study spans the broad domains of housing knowledge in architectural history and theory; environment and behavior; design process and methods; and building and environmental technology.The book begins with a discussion of vernacular housing and American culture and makes the case that dwellings reflect the people of different regions, materials, techniques, and design traditions of an earlier time. The history of American housing is reviewed with biographies and bibliographies, setting the stage for the environmental and social science perspective of housing. Residential environments are then considered in the broad sense of home and housing. Neighborhood and community are examined with a special focus on people, behavior, and the physical setting. The arts and popular media chapter presents American popular housing as image and icon, focusing on the arts and popular media as channels of visual and symbolic information or communication. These channels include painting, prints, pattern books, photography, music, film, television and video, literature, how-to manuals, and newspapers and magazines.Taking a macro-level perspective, direct and indirect programs of public administration and policy for housing are discussed. Then, the complex systems of financing, and the prevalance and mechanisms for matching buyers with sellers is considered in the chapter that considers housing finance, marketing, economics and management. The chapter on environmental design, construction process, and technology reviews the professional disciplines and their perspectives on housing, special populations and accessibility needs, descriptions of building trades, terms, materials, construction processes and past industrial housing experiments, as well as issues of energy management, computer technology, futuristic housing, air quality and household hazards. Using current technology to conduct research, the final chapter breaks from the conventional ways of locating hard-copy, copyrighted references to a seemingly endless potential of electronic communication systems such as data tapes; on-line databases; other electronic databases; electronic mail; listserves, chat, and on-line communities; libraries; on-line electronic texts; software; and news and journals including electronic journals.

Providing a convenient and unique look at fashion and costume literature and how it has developed historically, this volume discusses monographic and reference literature and provides information on periodicals, research centers, and costume museums and collections. It also provides a new way of looking at the literature through a database of 58 Library of Congress subject headings. It covers topics from jeans to wedding dresses and features popular examples of how clothing is used and reflected in our culture through the literature discussed. Of interest to scholars, students, and anyone curious about the unique power clothing holds in our lives.Various types of reference sources are discussed including other guides to the literature, encyclopedia, dictionaries, biographical dictionaries, specialized bibliographies, and indexing and abstracting services. Electronic CD-ROM and online databases equivalents are included in the presentation of indexing and abstracting services with major networks such as OCLC, RLIN, Lexis/Nexis, and Dialog mentioned as well. In addition a list of 123 research centers, mainly libraries, is provided and arranged geographically by state, some 176 costume museums and collections of costumes located at colleges and universities are listed alphabetically, and a list of 278 periodicals on fashion, costume, clothing and related topics is provided. A database of some 58 clothing and accessory subject headings is analyzed in the Worldcat database with the literature of the top ten specific clothing and accessory subject terms limited to media publication format are covered. Additionally, histories of costume and fashion in the U.S. and works which concentrate on psychological, sociological or cultural aspects are outlined. An appendix, including the clothing and accessory database, and author and subject indexes conclude the volume.

This guide to the available literature on sports in American culture during the last two decades of the 20th century is a companion to Jack Higg's Sports: A Reference Guide (Greenwood, 1982). The types of individual or team sports included in this volume include those that are viewed as physical contests engaged in for physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological fulfillment. With a focus on books alone, chapters review the available literature regarding sports and each concludes with a bibliography. Academic journals likely to contain articles on the topics discussed are listed at the end of each chapter. Twelve chapters discuss sports and American history, business and law, education, ethnicity and race, gender, literature, philosophy and religion, popular culture, psychology, science and technology, sociology and world history.This reference and guide to further research will appeal to scholars of popular culture and sports. An index and two appendixes are included, one listing important dates in American sports from 1980 through 2000 and one listing sports halls of fame, museums, periodicals, and websites.