American Culture in the 1980s / Edition 1

by Graham Thompson

Overview

This book looks beyond the common label of ‘Ronald Reagan’s America’ to chart the complex intersection of cultures in the 1980s. In doing so it provides an insightful account of the major cultural forms of 1980s America – literature and drama; film and television; music and performance; art and photography – and influential texts and trends of the decade: from White Noise to Wall Street, from Silicon Valley to MTV, and from Madonna to Cindy Sherman. A focused chapter considers the changing dynamics of American culture in an increasingly globalised marketplace. Key Features: * Focused case studies featuring key texts, genres, writers, artists and cultural trends* Detailed chronology of 1980s American culture* Bibliographies for each chapter* Twelve black and white illustrations

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780748619108
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	03/13/2007
Series:	Twentieth-Century American Culture
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Graham Thompson is an Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Nottingham. He is author of The Business of America: The Literary and Critical Production of a Post-War Nation (Pluto Press, 2004) and Male Sexuality under Surveillance: The Office in American Literature (University of Iowa Press, 2003).

Table of Contents

Chronology of the 1980s; Introduction: The Intellectual Context; Chapter 1: Literature and Drama; Chapter 2: Film and Television; Chapter 3: Music and Performance; Chapter 4: Art and Photography; Chapter 5: American Culture and Globalisation; Conclusion: The Cultural Legacy of the 1980s; General bibliography on 1980s American culture; Separate representative bibliographies for each chapter; Index.

What People are Saying About This

Paul Giles

A fresh angle on cultural works recent enough to exist in the collective memory, but also now distant enough to warrant analytical consideration within a discrete historical framework.

— Paul Giles, University of Oxford

Editorial Reviews

A fresh angle on cultural works recent enough to exist in the collective memory, but also now distant enough to warrant analytical consideration within a discrete historical framework.

Paul Giles