Rhetorical Table of Contents
Introduction: Analyzing Popular Culture
What is Popular Culture?
Thinking and Writing about Popular Culture
Active, Mindful Reading
1. Consumption
Benjamin Barber, "Overselling Capitalism With Consumerism"
Sylvie Kim, "The End of Spam Shame: On Class, Colonialism, and Canned Meat"
Roland Barthes, "Toys"
Virginia Postrel, "In Praise of Chain Stores"
Margaret Atwood, "Debtor’s Prism"
PAIRED READINGS: Consuming Work
Barbara Ehrenreich, "Selling in Minnesota"
Eric Schlosser, "Behind the Counter"
2. Advertising
William Lutz, "With These Words, I Can Sell You Anything"
Donna Woolfolk Cross, "Propaganda: How Not To Be Bamboozled"
Jason Tanz, "Selling Down: The Marketing of the Hip Hop Nation"
The Economist, "The Ultimate Marketing Machine"
Portfolio of Advertisements
FreeRice.com
There is No Easy Way In
Go Natural
You Can’t Resist M and They Know It
Live Within Your Means. Dress Beyond Them.
PAIRED READINGS: Commercial Appeal
Winston Fletcher, "Art or Puffery? A Defense of Advertising"
Bill Bryson, "The Hard Sell: Advertising in America"
3. Identity
Raquel Cepeda, "The N-Word is Flourishing Among a Generation of Hip-Hop Latinos: Why Should We Care Now?"
Hua Hsu, "The End of White America?"
Ariel Levy, "Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture"
Paul Kix, "Hip Hop is No Longer Cooler than Me"
PAIRED READINGS: Sporting Culture
Rob Ruck, "Where Have African American Baseball Players Gone?"
Malcolm Gladwell, "The Sports Taboo"
4. Technology
Nikil Saval, "Wall of Sound: The iPod has Changed the Way We Listen to Music"
Neil Postman, "The Judgment of Thamus"
Aymar Jean Christian, "The Problem of YouTube"
Farhad Manjoo, "Is Facebook a Fad?"
PAIRED READINGS: Transformed by Technology
Sherry Turkle, "Can you Hear Me Now?"
Clay Shirky, "Gin, Television, and Social Surplus"
5. Television
Robert Kubey and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, "Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor"
Marie Winn, "Television: The Plug-in Drug"
Erica Lies, "Mary Tyler More"
Steven Johnson, "Watching TV Makes You Smarter"
PAIRED READINGS: Watching Ourselves
George F. Will, "Reality Television: Oxymoron"
Mark Greif, "The Reality of Reality Television"
6. Movies
Rita Kempley, "Mystical Black Characters Play Complex Cinematic Role"
Susan Sontag, "The Imagination of Disaster"
Linda Seger, "Creating the Myth"
Alonso Duralde, "Why Are So Many Films for Latinos Bad?"
PAIRED READINGS: Tycoons and Working Stiffs
Rick Groen, "Why Hollywood Hates Capitalism"
Robert Nathan and Jo-Ann Mort, "Remembering Norma Rae"
7. Media Dreams
Frank Rose, "The Art of Immersion: Fear of Fiction"
Gerard Jones, "Violent Media is Good for Kids"
Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, "Why Vampires Never Die"
Chuck Klosterman, "My Zombie, My Self: Why Modern Life Feels Rather Undead"
PAIRED READINGS: Avatars and Aesthetes
Lane Wallace, "Can Video Games Teach Us How to Succeed in the Real World?"
Kyle Chayka, "Why Video Games Are Works of Art"
Index of Authors and Titles