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This book presents the first comprehensive and critical account of Jeffrey Alexander's cultural sociology. Alexander has proposed a “strong program” in cultural sociology that analyses the cultural pragmatics of social performance, and his hermeneutical approach connects meaningful political action with deeper symbolic structures of social life. His highly original account of the civil sphere, as an institutionalized domain that is shaped by the discourse of liberty and solidarity and that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations provides an illuminating perspective on how democracy functions, and fails to function, in contemporary societies. This book charts the development of Alexander's thought in all its complexity. Through its critical readings, it also opens up a dialogue with other contemporary approaches in sociology, situating Alexander's work in relation to others and highlighting alternative views that challenge his ideas. It is an invaluable introduction for anyone who wishes to learn more about the work of one of the most creative sociologists of our time.

Students want to know: What does one do with critique? Fortunately, some of the most provocative self-critical intellectuals, from the postwar period to the postmodern present, have wrestled with this. Joel Pfister, in Critique for What?, criss-crosses the Atlantic to take stock of exciting British and US cultural studies, American studies, and Left studies that challenge the academic critique-for-critique's-sake and career's-sake business and ask: Critique for what and for whom? Historicizing for what and for whom? Politicizing for what and for whom? America for what and for whom? Here New Left revisionary socialists, members of the'unpartied Left,'cultural studies theorists, American studies scholars, radical historians, progressive literary critics, and early proponents of transnational analysis interact in what amounts to a lively book-length strategy seminar. British political intellectuals, including Raymond Williams, E. P. Thompson, Stuart Hall, and Raphael Samuel, and Americans, including F. O. Matthiessen, Robert Lynd, C. Wright Mills, and Richard Ohmann, reconsider the critical project as social transformation studies, activism studies, organizing studies. Eager to prevent cultural studies from becoming cynicism studies, Critique for What? thinks creatively about the possibilities of using as well as developing critique in our new millennium.

This book demonstrates how foreign language textbook analysis can inform future materials development to improve foreign language teaching. Through chronological analysis of French textbooks in the United States, this book explores the representations of Canada and Quebec in French beginner textbooks produced from 1960 to 2010. Chapelle couples a large collection of 65 textbooks with a social-semiotic qualitative analysis of the genres, language and images that communicate Quebec's cultural narrative to learners. Findings about the amount and type of content are presented by decade to track the trends in foreign language teaching and changes in Quebec's representation. Particular attention is given to how language politics is presented to students through text and images. This book will be of interest to scholars of Canadian Studies, Quebec Studies and Second Language Acquisition, as well as foreign language materials developers.

Combines data obtained by a values projective technique over a period of more than 30 years. The purpose of the book is to deal with a process in which all Americans, old and new, and of all ethnic groups and minorities, are caught up - the American cultural dialogue.

From Hip-Hop to Hyperlinks is a text designed to invigorate composition teachers'classroom approaches for getting students to better understand American culture(s). The contributors share their strategies from their classrooms, including such exciting topics as food, comedy, music, technology, and photography. Readers may use this collection in a pragmatic way or as inspiration for developing and revising their current cultural curriculum. In general, these essays trace semester-long course structures to allow readers to see how one assignment leads into the next, often offering student writing samples along the way. There is not another collection out there quite like this one. Ideal for graduate students learning strategies for teaching, new teachers seeking some effective strategies or even seasoned professors looking for new teaching ideas, From Hip-Hop to Hyperlinks is an exciting addition to any composition instructor's collection of teaching texts.

What does it mean to be a'citizen'today, in an age of unbridled consumerism, terrorism, militarism, and multinationalism? In this passionate and dazzling book, Toby Miller dares to answer this question with the depth of thought it deserves. Fast-moving and far-ranging, Cultural Citizenship blends fact, theory, observation, and speculation in a way that continually startles and engages the reader. Although he is unabashedly liberal in his politics, Miller is anything but narrow minded. He looks at media coverage of September 11th and the Iraq invasion as well as'infotainment'—such as Food and Weather channels—to see how U.S. TV is serving its citizens as part of'the global commodity chain.'Repeatedly revealing the crushing grip of the invisible hand of television, Miller shows us what we have given up in our drive to acquire and to'belong.'For far too long,'cultural citizenship'has been a concept invoked without content. With the publication of this book, it has at last been given flesh and substance.

The study of culture in the American academy is not confined to a single field, but is a broad-based set of interests located within and across disciplines. This book investigates the relationship among three major ideas in the American academy—interdisciplinarity, humanities, and culture—and traces the convergence of these ideas from the colonial college to new scholarly developments in the latter half of the twentieth century. Its aim is twofold: to define the changing relationship of these three ideas and, in the course of doing so, to extend present thinking about the concept of'American cultural studies.'The book includes two sets of case studies—the first on the implications of interdisciplinarity for literary studies, art history, and music; the second on the shifting trajectories of American studies, African American studies, and women's studies—and concludes by asking what impact new scholarly practices have had on humanities education, particularly on the undergraduate curriculum.

Henry A. Giroux challenges the contemporary politics of cynicism by addressing a number of issues including the various attacks on cultural politics, the multicultural discourses of academia, the corporate attack on higher education, and the cultural politics of the Disney empire.