Book Description
No judgement of taste is innocent. In a word, we are all snobs. Pierre Bourdieu brilliantly illuminates this situation of the middle class in the modern world. France's leading sociologist focusses here on the French bourgeoisie, its tastes and preferences. Distinction is at once a vast ethnography of contemporary France and a dissection of the bourgeois mind.
In the course of everyday life people constantly choose between what they find aesthetically pleasing and what they consider tacky, merely trendy, or ugly. Bourdicu bases his study on surveys that took into account the multitude of social factors that play a part in a Frenchperson's choice of clothing, furniture, leisure activities, dinner menus for guests, and many other matters of taste. What emerges from his analysis is that social snobbery is everywhere in the bourgeois world. The different aesthetic choices people make are all distinctions-that is, choices made in opposition to those made by other classes. Taste is not pure. Bourdieu finds a world of social meaning in the decision to order bouillabaisse, in our contemporary cult of thinness, in the "California sports" such as jogging and cross-country skiing. The social world, he argues, functions simultaneously as a system of power relations and as a symbolic system in which minute distinctions of taste become the basis for social judgement.
The topic of Bourdieu's book is a fascinating one: the strategies of social pretension are always curiously engaging. But the book is more than fascinating. It is a major contribution to current debates on the theory of culture and a challenge to the major theoretical schools in contemporary sociology.
Customer Reviews:
Bourdieu.......2007-02-18
I think that if you are interested in this book, then you probably know what you are in for. It's hard going (of course) but worth the effort.
A Must Read!.......2004-04-03
This is a fantastic explication of how social class prearranges our tastes and interests. I disagree with the reader who thinks that it is not applicable to American society--to the contrary. It is true that American culture is not so obviously stratified in the exact same ways as French culture (of the 1960s, I would add, when Bourdieu collected his data). Also, in American culture there is less of a tendency to exploit the social markers (dress, etc.) that one might find in Europe, and it's hip nowadays for the middle-class to adopt the style and dress of the street (e.g., hip-hop); nevertheless, I'd say that this is a veneer of street-cred, and that if you were to look at how the middle-class actually lives compares to those where hip-hop originated, you'd find some pretty significant differences.
However, his basic differentiation between working class/petit bourgeois (small business owners, clerical workers and the like)/grand bourgeois (professionals, executives, and large industrialists) certainly carries over into American society. And most interesting is his claim that the higher up in the food chain one goes, the more one's taste in the "aesthetic" inclines towards Kant's idea of disinterested formalism, while the lower classes tend to want their art to be informed by ethics and morality.
Bourdieu sees these tendencies as "embodied" and largely unconsciously adopted through our upbringing. One only has to watch a television show like "The O.C." and how they cast Ryan's mother in comparison to the trophy wives of Orange County to see that even in America class and taste and body language are still encoded in our body language, choice of dress, manners, and conversational style. The economic reality of America is that a Wal-Mart worker or transcontinental trucker is NOT middle-class in the same way as a doctor, whether in terms of taste or salary. Anyone who thinks so is either deluding themselves or doesn't want to see the truth.
Bourdieu does not neglect to mention sex (although he doesn't have as much to say about race), and has sections on women's body image (the richer, the thinner) and how the different classes deal with food (high-fat, high-carb for lower classes, fresh veggies and lean meats for higher classes). In America, our current epidemic of obesity is not only the result of marketing campaigns, but also (perhaps largely) the result of poor quality food (e.g. fast food, prepared food) being made much more affordable than high quality food (fresh produce, fish, organic). If you can't afford to eat well in America, you probably won't.
Moreover, Bourdieu makes the observation, which holds true in America as much as anywhere else, that formal education (which reinforces "legitimate" taste) can change one's tastes and values, but that one's early social upbringing will lead to a quicker assimilation of "legitimate" culture. As someone who went to bourgeois schools without a bourgeois background, and who has subsequently taught at state universities in poor areas, this truism is so obvious as to hardly need explication. Much of the poor performance of underclass or non-bourgeois students is as much due to lack of early acculturation (by this I mean exposure to "culture" like non-Hollywood films, art museums, etc., but also the habits and customs associated with school learning and higher education) as it is to any basic intelligence.
Finally, it's true that Bourdieu's style is rather ponderous, repetitive, and academic, and the book is very long indeed. Nevertheless, I can't agree that it compares with the difficulty of Derrida, Jameson, Bhabha, or other high theorists. Bourdieu's sentences are sometimes long and have many subordinate clauses, but their basic subjects and verbs are easily identifiable! The Conclusion and Postscript do raise the level of difficulty, but the Introduction and body of the main text are accessible and basically say everything he has to say (many times). Anyone with a basic undergraduate education (one that has done its job properly) should be able to handle Bourdieu's style in this particular book.
read it for the diagrams.......2000-10-29
Distinction is the most cited book from Bourdieu, one of France's most prolific scholars. The book tends to assume that its readers are familiar with his key terms, developed mostly in _Outline of a Theory of Practice_ and _Logic of Practice_. Although it is the most cited, beginning readers of Bourdieu should probably start with _Partical Reason_ to get a handle on these concepts before getting involved in this larger tome.
Word for word, Bourdieu's writing style is not economical, and he is almost as cumbersome as Derrida. He does not approach the overly-complex mode of Deleuze and Guattari. His concepts bear the most resemblance to those of an early Baudrillard or a late Gramsci in terms of their interpretation of the social world, although he will depart into some more Marxist modes of interpretation.
Bourdieu's _Distinction_ is most valuable for his diagrams, as they provide a clear graphic representation of what he is trying to say. If one wants the read Bourdieu for content and/or argument, she would be better directed to one of his other books named above, as his arguments are more on-point and rpecide.
In addition, _Distinction_ is careful to limit itself to a data set collected in the late 60s and early 70s. Although the theory seems to be a sound one, Bourdieu makes claims of greater applicability in his books about the Bayle: _Outline_ and _Logic_. For discussions of modern Europe, his newer _Weight of the World_ provides a better, and more recent, analysis of the same social trends as in _Distinction_.
A brilliant look at the social implications of taste.......2000-09-12
I come back to this book time and again in my own work and see it as one of the most indispensible books today on issues of aesthetics, class distinctions, group identity, and covert social inequality. Bourdieu takes on the Kantian aesthetics of the "subjective universal," showing that the value judgments about things reflect material and social conditions and in fact index social and class differences. The way we classify things (operas, desserts, leisure activities) is inextricably tied up with the way we classify ourselves as social beings and others as members of other social groups.
Distinction is a long and difficult book, but from start to finish it is full of fascinating and original insights. Bourdieu's language is loaded with big words and long sentences, but I find that after I get used to the kinds of words and structures he uses, his language actually becomes pretty clear and straight-forward. It's definitely worth the time and brain-power needed to read it.
Good French ethnography from brilliant intellect.......2000-09-12
Pierre Bourdieu is a tremendous intellect, and has produced far superior work to this book. _Distinction_ is a fascinating book, particularly for those interested in French society. Yet its relevance cannot really extend to America, which has a markedly different system of class. The French have deeply entrenched class consciousness, in both a pragmatic sense and a Marxist sense, whereas 90% of Americans consider themselves "middle class." Bourdieu shows that the French are at pains to symbolically express their class differences, and he does so with aplomb. He compiles statistics and data which show ways in which the French produce their own class position through consumption, education, and taste. But his observations are less applicable to the vast American "middle class." Class mobility, education, and stylistic expression are much more democratically distributed in America. So while many French are content with their class position, vocation, and traditions, most Americans see themselves as "middle class," striving for better, and free from tradition. _Distinction_ is an interesting and accesible book, but those looking for Bourdieu's contributions to social theory will be better served by some of his other works.
Amazon.com
Intellectuals are often accused of viewing mass entertainment with contempt, fear, or condescension. The rise of cultural-studies programs in prestigious universities, however, reveals that this perception couldn't be further from the truth. In American Culture, American Tastes, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Michael G. Kammen explores the origins and implications of this new way that academics and critics celebrate, rather than condemn, popular tastes.
In principle, Kammen supports recent scholarly forays into the effects of mass production and consumerism on Americans' leisure time. He is concerned, however, that the audience's relationship to contemporary media is greatly underappreciated. In attempting to distinguish "popular" from "mass" culture, Kammen argues that with films, music, radio, and popular fiction, certain "highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow" levels emerged, targeting specific social classes or communities. These levels were quite permeable, however, and certain works, such as Shakespeare's plays and Charlie Chaplin's slapstick comedies, allowed audiences to transcend rigid categories of taste. In the television era, Kammen believes, leisure has become more passive and homogenized, however, and the era of democratic consumption that many modern intellectuals champion may be near an end.
To combat this trend, Kammen, like Russell Jacoby, longs to resurrect "public intellectuals," such as H.L. Mencken and Dwight Macdonald, who pointedly combined a learned appreciation of popular culture with a genuine concern for preserving the vivacity of public life. In a field dominated by Marxists and feminists, this call for liberal cultural "authority" will raise some hackles in academe, but praise among general audiences. --John M. Anderson
Book Description
Americans have a long history of public arguments about taste, the uses of leisure, and what is culturally appropriate in a democracy that has a strong work ethic. Michael Kammen surveys these debates as well as our changing taste preferences, especially in the past century, and the shifting perceptions that have accompanied them.
Professor Kammen shows how the post-traditional popular culture that flourished after the 1880s became full-blown mass culture after World War II, in an era of unprecedented affluence and travel. He charts the influence of advertising and opinion polling; the development of standardized products, shopping centers, and mass-marketing; the separation of youth and adult culture; the gradual repudiation of the genteel tradition; and the commercialization of organized entertainment. He stresses the significance of television in the shaping of mass culture, and of consumerism in its reconfiguration over the past two decades.
Focusing on our own time, Kammen discusses the use of the fluid nature of cultural taste to enlarge audiences and increase revenues, and reveals how the public role of intellectuals and cultural critics has declined as the power of corporate sponsors and promoters has risen. As a result of this diminution of cultural authority, he says, definitive pronouncements have been replaced by divergent points of view, and there is, as well, a tendency to blur fact and fiction, reality and illusion.
An important commentary on the often conflicting ways Americans have understood, defined, and talked about their changing culture in the twentieth century.
Customer Reviews:
If you enjoyed this book, try Also "From Lowbrow to Nobrow".......2007-05-18
If you enjoyed this book, try also a recent hit, "From Lowbrow to Nobrow," which provides a state of the art and revolutionary analysis of popular fiction (sort of a la Herbert Gans), and does it in an engaging, colourful and witty way. Peter Swirski, the author, is a literature specialist but his also ranges into sociology, leisure studies, aesthetics, economics, and many other aspects of the socio-cultural function of popular fiction, as well as a new socio-aesthetic category which he dubs "nobrow."
An excellent read!.......2000-09-03
I picked this book up on a whim, and found it an interesting mix; a somewhat anti-academic treatise written by a flourishing academic, filled with tremendous flashes of genuine insight into the perennial American ethos as it sifts out in our culture. Written in an engaging style, Kammen is clearly devoted to his own intellectual gifts but not overcome by them. His dissection of the impact of television on modern culture is particularly adept, if only the creators of TV programming possessed this much understanding of the medium in which they work! The pace of the book is invitingly brisk, and while it is thick going in a few places, it's mostly quite readable and makes its arguments in a manner that is concise, cogent, and to-the-point. Despite the somewhat dry title (although the Reginald Marsh painting on the cover really cinched my purchase of the book!), this is a penetrating and important look at the direction of American culture. Kammen's take on multi-culturalism in America seems somewhat bleached, and his occasional ruminations on cultural life played out vis-a-vis the increasingly virulent class war that rumbles just under the surface of American life seem conservative and not always informed, perhaps closeted a bit by his academic background. One other thing- the illustrations in the book are beautifully chosen, including Rockwell, Benton, and a positively magical drawing of Warhol by Jamie Wyeth. I'd never seen it before and it alone is worth the price of the book!
Well-Researched Look At American Leisure Preferences.......2000-08-16
Historian/author Michael Kammen's "American Culture, American Taste" exhaustively, deliberately examines 120 years of American leisure preferences: their classification, exploration, homogonization, and finally, exploitation. He recalls, charts, and deconstructs lines of "high," "low," and "middlebrow" taste (defined over time by everything from furniture choice to favorite "Simpsons" character). He also strengthens the divide between "popular" culture (often regional and participatory) over "mass" culture (homogoneous and sedentary), criticizing their interchangability in American society.
Kammen doesn't adhere to timeline (although he includes one to start the book) prefering to make points era to era, country to city, weaving critical opinions often 50 years apart. He cites the years 1880-1930 as when popular culture gained its footing (with increased leisure time) and inspired some of its finest (often bristling) national conversation from journalists such as Walter Lippmann. He finds unique angles in cultural hegemony (sports equipment and rule books, Walt Disney's and Charlie Chaplin's films, radio's "Amos n'Andy", and syndicated newspaper features all preceding television's ultimate conquest). Then again, Kammen also includes Timothy O'Leary's dimbulb quote that the Nintendo phenomenon is "about equal to that of the Gutenberg printing press." Uh huh.
Kammen reveals, then bemoans, the gradual shift from active to passive, social to private amusement, from reliance on cultural leadership ("tastemakers") to public opinion easily manipulated by advertising and slavishly served by mass media. Kammen also praises disparate artists like Andy Warhol and Ken Burns for their fresh, interpretive approaches to popular art, history, and their ultimate meld, acknowledging criticism of Burns in a chapter among the book's best.
Kammen writes like a professor: dryly, relying on self-reference and prepositional pile-up (ending Chapter 8, for example, with a huge excerpt from social critic Morag Shiach followed by his own terse, "I concur." Yet the sheer weight of his research, opinion collected and examples rendered make "American Culture" a fine companion piece to studying American fad, fashion, and leisure preference, a part of daily American life few scholars have seriously studied. Recommended.
Another Kammen Hit!.......2000-05-18
Kammen once again delivers the goods in this well-researched and timely discussion of how American popular culture has changed over the past century into mass culture. Popular and mass culture are terms often mis-used, so he starts with a discussion of their differences and how their meaning has changed. Kammen's range is broad and his commentary sharp. Enjoy! (I've read the library's copy, now I'm buying something I can mark on.)
Book Description
Brown's account of her life at the highest levels of the Black Panther party's hierarchy. More than a journey through a turbulent time in American history, this is the story of a black woman's battle to define herself.
Customer Reviews:
A Survivor.......2006-10-19
Elaine Brown went from the hood to the governor's office in her search for identity as a black woman coming of age in the 1970s and to make the black power movement - the Black Panther Party - a powerful voice in California state politics.
The autobiography is seemingly an act of catharsis as Brown bares her soul without justifying what she has done with her life. It is what it is and she keeps it real.
There will be segments that you'll be touched by, others that will repulse you and some where you question why, but it ultimately is her life story. Sexuality and violence - oftentimes at the hands of her lovers in the BPP - overshadows Brown's quest for love and acceptance, but you will find segments of her life that intertwine with snapshots from your past.
Brown takes what I consider some unnecessary swipes at Angela Davis - it is taken for granted that many in the black power movement questioned her membership in the Communist Party, USA - but she does have unapologetic portraits of people throughout her life.
If you are looking for an autobiography solely on the BPP from a party member's perspective, you may want to look for another book to read. But you will be missing one of the most powerful writings on one's life that has ever been published.
exciting, passionate, shocking, truthful............2006-05-18
While reading this book I experienced a wide range of feelings because Elaine Brown basically bared her soul when writing this book. She also has a great sense of humor. I give her the highest respect for the soul searching she did while penning her autobiography.
The book gives a clear look into the BPP and its members and the changes the party went through. I found the information of Huey P Newton, Eldrige Cleaver, and George Jackson especially eye opening and helpful-it answered some of the questions I had been seeking answers for.
The book also gives a clear look of what it was like to be a woman, a black women, in the 60s and 70s operating in a male dominated party and society as a whole
I noticed there are a lot of negative reviews on this book and wonder if the people who left them, wrote them because they really disliked how Elaine presented her story or are using the media's interpretation her legacy and the historical legacy of the BPP to fuel their comments. The story in the context of times and situation of the party and Elaine along with the political and social changes the party was trying to achieve.
Anyway I high recommend.
Reading this book changed my completely challenged my perceptions.......2005-12-24
I read this book several years ago and never before reading it or since have I been so completely affected by a book. Reading the story of this woman who elected to dedicate her life to improving the social and political conditions of her people helped me to understand the responsibility we all have to continue the struggle. The book is such an interesting and honest look at the Black Panther party. It is not always comforting, but it is very real. I would not only recommend this book, I would urge anyone who wants to really understand the trials, tribulations, successes, triumphs and ultimately, the failure of the Black Panther Party to read this book. Today!
Self and Self-Serving.......2005-09-21
Everyone has a story to tell but it should be open and objective. Elaine Brown tells us what a strong black woman she is and in the next breath it's 'oh poor me'. In the end, everyone was wrong, except her.
If you really want to read this book, bborrow it or skim through in the bookstore. Don't waste your money, enough of us already have.
Great!!!.......2005-09-01
The book came as promised and on schedule. And for anyone interested, I loved the book. Check it Out!!!
Customer Reviews:
A wonderful introduction.......2007-08-15
I do not, in general, read history books - social or otherwise but I have been reading a variety of food-related history and culture books. From this context, I found Schivelbush's Tastes of Paradise to be "just right." He provides the broad framework within which he leads the reader through exploration of spices, beer, chocolate, tea, coffee, snuff, opium (and in an afterword, bottled water). Through the study of the place and manner of consumption, he shows some of the effects of these intoxicants on society as well as the effects of history on the use of these intoxicants.
Two points I found particularly of interest were how the fall of Spain as a world power led to hot chocolate's association with women and children. His brief description of opium as an agent of economic/political oppression also caught my attention. What I appreciated the most, however, was the use of art to substantiate his descriptions of place and manner of consumption. The art added a level of substantiation of his arguments that words could not supply.
True, as other reviewers have mentioned, this book does not cover the whole topic nor even treat all intoxicants with the same level of detail. However, he does provide an overview sufficient for many of us which serves well as a base for those who wish to explore further.
A Matter of Usage.......2006-11-29
I must beg to differ with my fellow reviewers about
the merits of this book. I do agree that the treatment
of individual spices is cursory and that the lack of
an index is a disappointment. What I find to praise
here is perhaps the very thing that others find to blame.
Schivelbusch has a point of view that is rooted in
wanting to discover the attitudes, behavior and beliefs
that underlay the European fascination with spicing foods.
He offers a coherent theory-a combination of exoticism and
social climbing. Then examines the consequences of this
fascination in art, literature and society at large.
So this is not an encyclopedia or even a particularly
good guide to sources. Some of that can be better found
in drier accounts like Andrew Dalby's DANGEROUS TASTES.
TASTES OF PARADISE is an accessible and interesting
account of the place that spices, stimulants and intoxicants
have in our world. It is a brisk chronicle of what we have
done with them and what they have done to us, and as that
I recommend it hightly.
--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN 9781601640005
Not as piquant as I had hoped..........2002-02-06
This just had to be a subject right up my alley. Spices? I live in Texas where Tabasco is a condiment (and not a spice) and jalapenos are considered vegetables. Stimulants? I have a coffee cup surgically attached to my hand and Brazilian music runs constantly through my head. Intoxicants? I worship beer. What could be better than a book about all three subjects?
Tastes of Paradise considers the social use of and social importance of spices, stimulants, and intoxicants largely from a Western point of view. It covers the use of spices, the coffee-related ethic of the middle class, chocolate, the rise of smoking and snuff, alchohol and the industrial revolution, and the rituals and places surrounding our drinking. What more could we talk about?
Turns out there's a lot more we could talk about, and what would be better is a book that really covers all three subjects. My disappointment boils down to three basic complaints against the book. The first is by far the broadest. In including "a social history" in the title, Schivelbusch focuses almost exclusively on the social effect of the use of the particular stimulant or intoxicant. Nowhere does he discuss the broader history of the item or the impact of the item on society (read "The True History of Chocolate" for a broader and more thorough presentation on chocolate, for example). My second complaint regards his treatment of specific subjects. Spices get remarkably short shrift (twelve pages total; less space than the discussion of drinking rituals; "Nathaniel's Nutmeg" is a better presentation on spices as a whole), and tea is only considered from the point of view of England (I'm pretty sure that the Chinese and Japanese drank tea, and that there's some social history there). Finally, there are more illustrations in this book than in most elementary school readers.
The book is immensely readable, does include -some- interesting illustrations, and covers admirably the impact on western society of the most popular stimulants and intoxicants from the 1600's to the late 1800's. However, there's an enormous amount that isn't there (except for the extra illustrations; those are presented wholesale), and in that the book disappoints.
Left me wanting more.......2001-05-10
And I see from the reviews below that I wasn't the only one. The author has really picked a fascinating subject, and brings it to life, weaving together strands of economics, sociology, geography, and chemistry to explain some of the impacts that these now-commonplace items have had on Western culture. (And what impacts our culture has had on the items - did you know that chocolate was a drink for monks and aristocrats before it became a snack for children?)
But the book is far too short. Many subjects are merely glanced over, and the illustrations, in addition to being so numerous as to be suspected of being filler, are often dark and hard to make out. I would have rather seen the author do a book this size on any one of the various subjects at hand - just coffee, say, or just pepper - and really explored it in depth.
Engaging and readable.......2000-08-09
Schivelbusch's Tastes of Paradise provides a refreshingly light-hearted, yet engaging glimpse at some of the substances which, through our stomachs, lungs, and palates, have played a not insignificant role in personal and cultural interactions of European civilizations. Concentrating primarily on western societies between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, Schivelbusch devotes over 50 pages to each of the subjects of coffee, tobacco, and alcohol; he also includes ample discussion of the historical role of chocolate, spices, and nineteenth-century opiates. I read this book as part of a college-level World History class (middle ages- present) and found it to be an enjoyable and worthwhile complement to novels, primary sources, and textbook readings we studied. Spread out in small doses over the course of the semester, it provided an unusual vantage point from which major themes such as Industrialism, Christianity, Romanticism, and social class structures could be more readily understood. Over 100 black-and-white reproductions of period art enhance Schivelbusch's lively discussion of the material. Without suggesting that these substances played an unrealistically inflated role in history, Schivelbusch offers a highly accessible discussion equally suitable for the student or casual reader.
Average customer rating:
- Charming and (Mostly) Accurate
- Red faces
- Thought-provoking and purely wonderful
|
Taste
Stephen Bayley
Manufacturer: Pantheon
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Binding: Hardcover
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Release Date: 1992-03-10 |
Customer Reviews:
Charming and (Mostly) Accurate.......2005-05-25
Here's one thing I can infer with some certainty: Stephen Bayley is a more charming dinner companion than I. He's a great story-teller, and uses that gift to great effect. He never lets an assertion or the demonstration of a point go by without a telling anecdote to go along with it. He's also got some courage: this book ranges far and wide, over terrain you'd need six or eight academics to cover authoritatively. That said, there are a few moments that make me wonder about the accuracy of his book. When he wanders into areas that I know about professionally (the philosophy of Hume or the poetry of Keats, say, both of which I teach) he's bright and clear and amusing, but only about 90% right. It would be asking a great deal of Bayley if we were to demand that he combine the skills of experts in many areas with the skills of a real raconteur, and in his foreword Bayley admits that there are moments in the book when he lapses into facetiousness. Still, he's done something of real value in writing a witty, readable book on such a nebulous topic. If you take this book as an introduction to the topic, rather than as the final word, you'll be quite pleased, I think.
Red faces.......2001-06-10
Ah. It's great to read a book that makes some red faces out of the monied up consumer.
Thought-provoking and purely wonderful.......2000-06-22
Everyone should read this book, to agree or disagree with Bayley doesn't matter, it is simply a broadly interesting and highly entertaining compendium of amazing bits of information.
Book Description
One of the world's most respected sociologists updates his classic work on public views of popular and high culture.
Is NYPD Blue a less valid form of artistic expression than a Shakespearean drama? Who is to judge and by what standards?
In this new edition of Herbert Gans's brilliantly conceived and clearly argued landmark work, he builds on his critique of the universality of high cultural standards. While conceding that popular and high culture have converged to some extent over the twenty-five years since he wrote the book, Gans holds that the choices of typical Ivy League graduates, not to mention Ph.D.s in literature, are still very different from those of high school graduates, as are the movie houses, television channels, museums, and other cultural institutions they frequent.
This new edition benefits greatly from Gans's discussion of the "politicization" of culture over the last quarter-century. Popular Culture and High Culture is a must read for anyone interested in the vicissitudes of taste in American society.
Customer Reviews:
Gans and Swirski.......2006-11-18
I dont want to belabour here the greatness of Gans's study: it's an acknowledged classic and needs no further recommendation. But I would like to draw attention to a slightly less known study by Peter Swirski, called "From Lowbrow to Nobrow" (published about a year ago) which in many ways continues the line of inquiry spearheaded by Gans. As a matter of fact, Chapter 2 in "From Lowbrow to Nobrow" leans on Gans's book when it provides a thorough review (and a wonderful debunking) of a multitude of accusations raised against popular culture and popular fiction over the decades. Swirski tends to be more humorous and colloquial, and focuses mainly on literature and film, whereas Gans takes a more "wholistic" and sociological approach to popular culture. Otherwise, it is hard for me to decide which book I learned more from.
Average customer rating:
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Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke (Humor Research 7)
Giselinde Kuipers
Manufacturer: Mouton de Gruyter
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Book Description
Good Humor, Bad Taste is the first extensive sociological study of the relationship between humor and social background. Using a combination of interview materials, survey data, and historical materials, the book explores the relationship between humor and gender, age, regional background, and especially, humor and social class in the Netherlands. The final chapter focuses on national differences, exploring the differences between the American and the Dutch sense of humor, again using a combination of interview and survey materials.
The starting point for this exploration of differences in sense of humor is one specific humorous genre: the joke. The joke is not a very prestigious genre; in the Netherlands even less so than in the US. It is precisely this lack of status that made it a good starting point for asking questions about humor and taste. Interviewees generally had very pronounced opinions about the genre, calling jokes "their favorite kind humor", but also "completely devoid of humor" and "a form of intellectual poverty". Good Humor, Bad Taste attempts to explain why jokes are good humor to some, bad taste to others.
The focus on this one genre enables Good Humor, Bad Taste to have a very wide scope. The book not only covers the appreciation and evaluation of jokes by different social groups and in different cultures, and its relationship with wider humor styles. It also describes the genre itself: the history of the genre, its decline in status from the sixteenth century onward, and the way the topics and the tone of jokes have changed over the last fifty years of the twentieth century.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating font of factoids.......2002-10-30
Seven years ago, my wife and I thought we were going to be clever and original if we named our daughter "Hannah". We didn't know any Hannahs in our generation. But now it seems every other family had a "Hannah" in the 1990s. After reading Lieberson's book, I understand that we got swept up in one of the many waves of name-fashions that he so ably chronicles.
This is an entertaining book, remarkably so considering the author's intention which was to write a serious work of academic deep-think. So there's a great deal of sociologist talk, which is decidedly not entertaining. But, just as the cartoons redeem even the worst issues of the _New Yorker_ , this book is worth getting just for the many statistical charts. You can follow the spectacular career of "Jennifer", the ups and downs of Biblical names, learn about names and social class, and so on.
Finally, I recommend this book to economists who are interested in fads and herd behavior.
What's in a name? Lieberson knows!.......2001-09-04
Lieberson has written a scholarly, witty, and extremely informative book about the factors influencing parents' choices of first names for their children. Using data from 7 countries plus the states of Illinois and California, he shows that "fashion" affects children's names just as much as it does choices in clothing or music. Names became objects of fashion several centuries ago in the West, when, among other influences, state regulations and religious customs loosened their hold over what names parents could choose. With the changes concomitant upon nations entering the modern era, name choices subsequently became more matters of individual preference rather than custom and tradition. However, parents made their choices within the context of changing tastes driven by forces "internal" to the naming process itself, rather than being "determined" by external technological or mass media forces.
The sounds of names themselves display explicable trends, such as the preference for names ending in "a" or "n." Groups of names with similar endings rise and fall together, in fairly orderly, long-term movements.
Lieberson does a brilliant job in presenting evidence, using simple graphs and tables, rather than elaborate quantitative statistical analysis. His chapter on trends in name choices among ethnic and racial groups is particularly compelling, as he shows the joint affects of internal mechanisms (e.g. how names "sound") and external influences (e.g. a group's desire to assimilate quickly).
Want to know why your parents named you "Judy" rather than "Judith"? This book has the answer!
A Taste of names.......2000-09-15
A MATTER OF TASTE is a powerful contribution to our understanding of the factors underlying the popularity of first names. Lieberson has brought together a wealth of ideas, concepts, and principles to the analysis of social change. He has used empirical data from the research on names to do this. The data come from several locales including various parts of the United States, England and Wales, Scotland, Denmark and France. Extensive attention paid to the media influence (or lack of) on the popularity of names. For anyone interested in first names this is a valuable background source to understanding their importance.
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Food Nations: Selling Taste in Consumer Societies (Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture)
Warren Belasco
Manufacturer: Routledge
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ASIN: 0415930774 |
Book Description
"Food is important. There is in fact nothing more basic. Food is the first of the essentials of life, our biggest industry, our greatest export, and our most frequently indulged pleasure," writes co-editor Warren Belasco in the Introduction to the third volume in the Hagley Perspectives on Business and Culture series.
Americans are food-conscious like never before, and consequently, books about food are some of the most popular non-fiction selling today. Food Nations, however, abandons culinary nostalgia and the cataloguing of regional cuisines to examine the role of food and food marketing in constructing culture, consumer behavior, and national identity. International in scope, this anthology offers a diversity of examples from the discourse of food like the marketing of the California avocado, multiethnic "foodscapes" in Los Angeles, fast food in Berlin's Belle Epoque, the consumption of canned food in France, and the cultural subtext of Gerber baby food.
Food Nations collects new essays from the leading scholars in the emerging field of food studies like Sidney Mintz, Donna Gabaccia, and Amy Bentley and offers a rigorous and entertaining history of all that we eat.
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Books Index
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