Contents for Signs of Life, 9e
Preface for Instructors
INTRODUCTION
Popular Signs: Or, Everything You Always Knew about American Culture (but Nobody Asked)
American Civil War
From Folk to For-Profit
Pop Culture Goes to College
The Semiotic Method
Abduction and Overdetermination
Interpreting Popular Signs: The War Against Everybody
The Classroom Connection
Of Myths and Men
Getting Started
Writing about Popular Culture
Using Active Reading Strategies
Prewriting Strategies
Developing Strong Arguments about Popular Culture
Conducting a Semiotic Analysis
Reading Visual Images Actively
Reading Essays about Popular Culture
*ELIJAH GREEN: Alfred Lubrano: The Shock of Myopia [student essay]
AMY LIN: Barbie: Queen of Dolls and Consumerism [student essay]
ROSE SOROOSHIAN: The Walking 99 Percent: An Analysis of The Walking Dead in the Context of the 2008 Recession [student essay]
Conducting Research and Citing Sources
SCOTT JASCHIK: A Stand against Wikipedia
PATTI S. CARAVELLO: Judging Quality on the Web
TRIP GABRIEL: For Students in Internet Age, No Shame in Copy and Paste
Chapter 1.
Consuming Passions: The Culture of American Consumption
LAURENCE SHAMES: The More Factor
PAIRED READINGS: UNDERSTANDING SHOPPING
ANNE NORTON: The Signs of Shopping
MALCOLM GLADWELL: The Science of Shopping
*MICHAEL POLLAN: Supermarket Pastoral
Credit Card Barbie [photograph]
JON MOOALLEM: The Self-Storage Self
*CHRIS ARNING: What Can Semiotics Contribute to Packaging Design?
JAMES A. ROBERT: The Treadmill of Consumption
STEVE McKEVITT: Everything Now
*TROY PATTERSON: The Politics of the Hoodie
THOMAS FRANK: Commodify Your Dissent
Chapter 2.
Brought to You B(u)y: The Signs of Advertising
When You Come Home [advertisement]
JACK SOLOMON: Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising
PAIRED READINGS: CREATING CONSUMERS
JAMES B. TWITCHELL: What We Are to Advertisers
STEVE CRAIG: Men’s Men and Women’s Women
*JIA TOLENTINO: How "Empowerment" Became Something for Women to Buy
*ALEX MAYYASI: How Subarus Came to Be Seen as Cars for Lesbians
*JESSICA CONTRERA: Most Young People Don't Vote—Condescending to Them Doesn't Help
*KALLE OSKARI MATTILA: The Age of the Wordless Logo
JULIET B. SCHOR: Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool
*STEPHANIE MILLER: The Power of Play: Gamification Can Change Marketing
JULIA B. CORBETT: A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World
Portfolio of Advertisements
Bose
Buffalo Exchange
California Walnuts
Johnson’s Baby
Limbo
Sanuk
Shinola
Chapter 3.
On the Air: Television and Cultural Forms
NEAL GABLER: The Social Networks
PAIRED READINGS: Signifying Women on TV
*ANNA KESZEG: What Their Clothes Tell Us About Those Girls
CLAIRE MIYE STANFORD: You’ve Got the Wrong Song: Nashville and Country Music Feminism
*JOHN SHERMAN: The New Normative: Queer Politics in The Outs
*OLIVIA GOLDHILL: Trump Supporters Are Living in a Reality Shaped by Television
NICK SERPE: Reality Pawns: The New Money TV
*EMILY NUSSBAUM: The Aristocrats: The Graphic Arts of 'Game of Thrones"
*MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI: The One Paradigm to Rule Them All: Scientism and The Big Bang The Evolution of Rap
Chapter 4.
The Hollywood Sign: The Culture of American Film
ROBERT B. RAY: The Thematic Paradigm
PAIRED READINGS: Fantasy and Film
CHRISTINE FOLCH: Why the West Loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy: A Cultural Explanation
*ABRAHAM RIESMAN: What We Talk about When We Talk about Batman and Superman
LINDA SEGER: Creating the Myth
MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die
HELENA ANDREWS: The Butler versus The Help: Gender Matters
Lee Daniels’ The Butler [movie poster]
JESSICA HAGEDORN: Asian Women in Film: No Joy, No Luck
MICHAEL PARENTI: Class and Virtue
MICHAEL AGRESTA: How the Western Was Lost — and Why It Matters
DAVID DENBY: High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies
Chapter 5.
The Cloud: Semiotics and the New Media
INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR MEDIA AND THE PUBLIC AGENDA: Students Addicted to Social Media
PAIRED READINGS: The Digital Panopticon
*RONALD J. DEIBERT: Black Code: Surveillance, Privacy, and the Dark Side of the Internet
JOSEPH TUROW: The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Your Worth
*Erin Lee: How Effective is Social Media Activism?
*BRIAN DUNNING: Slacktivism: Raising Awareness
*BROOKE GLADSTONE: Influencing Machines: The Echo Chambers of the Internet
*JOHN HERRMAN: Inside Facebook's (Totally Insane, Unintentionally Gigantic, Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine
*TIMOTHY B. LEE: Pokemon Go is Everything that is Wrong with Late Capitalism
*NANCY JO SALES: From the Instamatic to Instagram: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers
*danah boyd: It's Complicated: MySpace vs. Facebook
*S. CRAIG WATKINS: The Evolution of #Black Twitter
Navigating On- and Offline Lives [photograph]
Chapter 6.
My Selfie, My Self: Identity and Ideology in the New Millennium
MICHAEL OMI: In Living Color: Race and American Culture
PAIRED READINGS: PERFORMING GENDER
AARON DEVOR: Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes
DEBORAH BLUM: The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?
Gender Identity Online [photograph]
*JENNA WORTHAM: When Everyone Can be "Queer," is Anyone?
KEVIN JENNINGS: American Dreams
*ALEX WILLIAMS: Move Over, Millennials, Here Comes Generation Z
RACHEL LOWRY: Straddling Online and Offline Profiles, Millennials Search for Identity
*BRITTANY COOPER, Hollywood’s Post-Racial Mirage
*LILLIANA MASON: Why Are Americans So Angry This Election Season?
Chapter 7.
American Paradox: Culture, Conflict, and Contradiction in the U.S.A.
*BARBARA EHRENREICH: Bright-Sided
PAIRED READINGS: The Consequences of Contradictions
*JEFFREY FLEISHMAN: How an Angry National Mood is Reflected in Pop Culture
*JIM TANKERSLEY: Why the Upper Middle Class Might be the Real Target of Today's Anger
GEORGE PACKER: Celebrating Inequality
ALFRED LUBRANO: The Shock of Education
RANDALL KENNEDY: Blind Spot
MARIAH BURTON NELSON: I Won. I’m Sorry
WADE GRAHAM: Are We Greening Our Cities, or Just Greenwashing Them?
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