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Bird, S. Elizabeth, ed. Dressing in Feathers: The Construction
of the Indian in American Popular Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996. |
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Essays range over two centuries and many forms, from wild
west shows to Disneys Pocahontas. |
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Bogle, Donald. Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks:
An Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films. New York: Viking Press, 1973. |
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Classic study (updated in 1998 edition) of African American
stereotypes, from the silent film era to late 20th century. |
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Churchill, Ward. Fantasies of the Master Race: Literature,
Cinema and the Colonization of American Indians. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1992. |
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Blunt, often incisive, critique of issues ranging from genocidal
Westerns to sports mascots to New Age wannabe Indians. |
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Diawara, Manthia, ed. Black American Cinema. New York: Routledge, 1993. |
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Excellent collection of essays on aesthetics, history, and reception
of African American film. |
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Fregoso, Rose Linda. The Bronze Screen: Chicana and Chicano
Film Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. |
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The best study yet of Chicanas as subjects in and creators of
film. |
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Gaspar de Alba, Alicia. Chicano Art Inside/Outside the Masters
House: Cultural Politics and the CARA Exhibition. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1998. |
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Brilliant interpretation of a major Chicano art retrospective
that raises key questions about the construction of high art vs.
popular art among marginalized ethno-racialized groups. |
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Gray, Herman. Watching Race: Television and the Struggle
for Blackness. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1995. |
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Brilliant interpretation of the evolution of representations
of African Americans in television news and fiction programming,
from the 1980s to the present. |
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Guerrero, Ed. Framing Blackness: The African American Image
in Film. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993. |
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Among the very best general works on African Americans and film.
|
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Hamamoto, Darrell Y. Monitored Peril: Asian Americans and
the Politics of TV Representation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. |
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Wide-ranging study that includes issues of internment, and the
war in Southeast Asia, in addition to ongoing, everyday stereotypes
of TV orientalism. |
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Jhally, Sut. The Codes of Advertising: Fetishism and the
Political Economy of Meaning in the Consumer Society. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987. |
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Strong study of how advertising texts shape racial, gender,
and class beliefs and create a consumer consciousness.
|
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Jhally, Sut and Justin Lewis. Enlightened Racism: The
Cosby Show, Audiences, and the Myth of the American Dream.
Boulder: Westview Press, 1992.
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Combines audience surveys and textual analysis to look at how
confusions of race and class in the US are reflected in and
reinforced by Cosbys mid-80s show. |
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Lee, Robert G. Orientals: Asian Americans in Popular Culture.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999.
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The most comprehensive study to date on Asian Americans in pop
culture, covering two centuries and many different cultural
forms. |
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Lipsitz, George. Time Passages: Collective Memory and American
Popular Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990. |
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Innovative study of relations between mass-produced pop culture
and the realities of communal memory dimly present in those
commodified productions. |
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Dangerous Crossroads: Popular Music, Postmodernism
and the Poetics of Place. London; New York: Verso, 1994. |
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Incisive study of various musical ethnic subcultures and their
complex negotiations with the dominant culture and their co-resisters
in a global/local struggle over meaning. |
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Lutz, Catherine and Jane L. Collins. Reading National Geographic.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
|
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Two visual anthropologists study the racial, gender, and international
politics of this influential journal. |
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McNair, Brian. Mediated Sex: Pornography and Postmodern Culture.
UK: Arnold Publishers, 1996.
|
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Sociology-based analysis weighing various arguments about the
production and consumption of pornography; focused primarily
on the US and Britain. |
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Pratt, Ray. Rhythm and Resistance: The Political Uses of
Popular Music. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1994. |
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Examines the political impact of spirituals, gospel, the blues,
and rock n roll in American culture. |
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Reid, Mark. Redefining Black Film. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. |
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Important history of the black independent film industry that
has long sought to counter and complicate mainstream Hollywood
representations of African Americans. |
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Rose, Tricia. Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in
Contemporary America. Hanover, NH: Published by University Press
of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1994. |
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Arguably the best book yet on rap, this study analyses both
the political economic cultural roots of rap, and its textual
meanings. |
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Ross, Andrew, Tricia Rose, and Andrew Rose, eds. Microphone
Fiends: Youth Music and Youth Culture. New York: Routledge, 1994. |
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Excellent collection of essays on rock, rap, heavy metal, dance
scenes, and the youth cultures that surround them. |
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Tomlinson, John. Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
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A fine, brief survey of issues surrounding the ways in which
US pop culture may or may not be overwhelming other world
cultures. |
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