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In this guide to cultural criticism, Arthur Asa Berger presents complex concepts in jargon-free language, making the book an ideal introductory text. It covers the key theorists, concepts, and subject areas, from literary, sociological and psychoanalytical theories of semiotics and Marxism. Berger brings cultural criticism to life by making these theories relevant to see students' lives. Illustrating his explanations with excerpts from classic works, Berger gives readers a sense of the style of important thinkers and helps place them in context. There is an extensive bibliography which will be an invaluable resource for those who wish to explore the topics in greater depth.

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Suggested Further Reading

Abelove, H., Barale, M. A., & Halperin, D. (Eds.). (1993). The lesbian and gay studies reader. New York: Routledge.
Adorno, T. W. (1967). Prisms (S.Weber & S.Weber, Trans.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Adorno, T. W. (1991). The culture industry: Selected essays on mass culture. London: Routledge.
Armstrong, N. (1987). Desire and domestic fiction: A political history of the novel. New York: Oxford University Press.
Aronowitz, S. (1992). The politics of identity. New York: Routledge.
Aronowitz, S. (1993). Dead artists, live theories and other cultural problems. New York: Routledge.
Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world (H.Iswolsky, Trans.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Barker, M., & Beezer, A. (1992). Reading into cultural studies. London: Routledge.
Barthes, R. (1970). Writing degree zero and elements of semiology (A.Lavers & C.Smith, Trans.). Boston: Beacon.
Barthes, R. (1974). S/Z (R.Miller, Trans.). New York: Hill & Wang.
Barthes, R. (1975). The pleasure of the text (R.Miller, Trans.). New York: Hill & Wang.
Barthes, R. (1975). Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes (R.Howard, Trans.). New York: Hill & Wang.
Barthes, R. (1978). A lover's discourse (R.Howard, Trans.). New York: Hill & Wang.
Barthes, R. (1988). The semiotic challenge (R.Howard, Trans.). New York: Hill & Wang.
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine.
Baudrillard, J. (1983). Simulations (P.Foss et al., Trans.). New York: Semiotext(e).
Beilharz, P., Robinson, G., & Rundell, J. (1992). Between totalitarianism and post-modernity: A thesis eleven reader. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Benjamin, W. (1974). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In Mast, G., & Cohen, M. (Eds.), Film theory and criticism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bennett, T., & Woollacott, J. (1987). Bond and beyond: The political career of a popular hero. New York: Methuen.
Berger, A. A. (1973). The comic-stripped American. New York: Walker.
Berger, A. A. (1984). Signs in contemporary culture: An introduction to semiotics. New York: Annenberg-Longman.
Berger, A. A. (Ed.). (1987). Visual sociology and semiotics. Aachen, Germany: Edition Herodot.
Berger, A. A. (1989). Seeing is believing: An introduction to visual communication. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.
Berger, A. A. (Ed.). (1990). Agitpop: Political culture and communication theory. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Berger, A. A. (1993). An anatomy of humor. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Berman, M. (1982). All that is solid melts into air: The experience of modernity. New York: Touchstone.
Bernstein, R. J. (1992). The new constellation: The ethical-political horizons of modernity/postmodernity. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Bettelheim, B. (1976). The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of fairy tales. New York: Knopf.
Bhabha, H. K. (1993). The location of culture. New York: Routledge.
Bird, J., et al. (1993). Mapping the futures: Local cultures, global change. London: Routledge.
Blau, H. (1992). To all appearances: Ideology and performance. London: Routledge.
Bloom, C. (Ed.). (1993). Creepers: British horror and fantasy in the twentieth century. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1990). Reproduction in education, society, and culture. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Bowlby, R. (1993). Shopping with Freud: Items on consumerism, feminism and psychoanalysis. London: Routledge.
Branigan, E. (1992). Narrative comprehension and film. New York: Routledge.
Brenkman, J. (1993). Straight, male, modern: A cultural critique of psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge.
Brown, M. E. (Ed.). (1990). Television and women's culture: The politics of the popular. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Buck-Morss, S. (1989). The dialectics of seeing: Walter Benjamin and the arcades project. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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Carey, J. W. (Ed.). (1988). Media, myths, and narratives: Television and the press. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Clark, K., & Holmquist, M. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Clarke, J. (1992). New times and old enemies: Essays on cultural studies and America. London: Routledge.
Collins, J., Radner, H., & Collins, A. P. (Eds.). (1992). Film theory goes to the movies: Cultural analysis of contemporary film. New York: Routledge.
Collins, R., Curran, J., Garnham, N., Scannell, P., Schlesinger, P., & Sparks, C. (Eds.). (1986). Media, culture and society: A critical reader. London: Sage.
Cottom, D. (1989). Text and culture: The politics of interpretation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Coward, R., & Ellis, J. (1977). Language and materialism: Developments in semiology and the theory of the subject. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Crane, D. (1992). The production of culture: Media and the urban arts. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Creed, B. (1993). The monstrous-feminine: Film, feminism, psychoanalysis. London: Routledge.
Crimp, D. (Ed.). (1988). AIDS: Cultural analysis/cultural activism. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Crook, S., Pakulski, J., & Waters, M. (Eds.). (1992). Postmodernization: Change in advanced society. London: Sage.
Cross, G. (1993). Time and money: The making of a consumer culture. London: Routledge.
Culler, J. (1977). Ferdinand de Saussure. New York: Penguin.
Culler, J. (1981). The pursuit of signs. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Culler, J. (1982). On deconstruction. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Davis, R. C., & Schleifer, R. (1991). Criticism and culture. London: Longman.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life (S.Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
de Certeau, M. (1986). Heterologies: Discourse on the other (B.Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
De Lauretis, T. (1984). Alice doesn't: Feminism, semiotics, cinema. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
De Lauretis, T. (1987). Technologies of gender: Essays on theory, film and fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Denzin, N. K. (1991). Images of postmodern society: Social theory and contemporary cinema. London: Sage.
Derrida, J. (1967). Of grammatology (G. C.Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Derrida, J. (1981). Positions (A.Bass, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Doane, M. A. (1987). The desire to desire: The woman's film of the 1940s. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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Douglas, M. (1992). Risk and blame: Essays in cultural theory. London: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203430866
Dundes, A. (1987). Cracking jokes: Studies in sick humor cycles and stereotypes. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed.
Dworkin, D. L., & Roman, L. G. (1992). Views beyond the border country: Raymond Williams and cultural politics. New York: Routledge.
Dyer, R. (1993). The matter of images: Essays on representations. London: Routledge.
Eagleton, T. (1976). Marxism and literary criticism. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Ferguson, R., Gever, M., Minh-ha, T. T., & West, C. (Eds.). (1990). Out there: Marginalization and contemporary cultures. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Fiske, J. (1989). Reading the popular. Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman.
Fiske, J. (1989). Understanding popular culture. Winchester, MA: Unwin Hyman.
Fjellman, S. M. (1992). Vinyl leaves: Walt Disney World and America. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Franklin, S., Lury, C., & Stacey, J. (1992). Off-centre: Feminism and cultural studies. London: Routledge.
Freud, S. (1957). Civilization and its discontents (J.Riviere, Trans.). London: Hogarth.
Freud, S. (1963). Jokes and their relation to the unconscious (J.Strachey, Trans.). New York: W. W. Norton.
Fry, W. F. (1968). Sweet madness: A study of humor. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific.
Frye, N. (1957). Anatomy of criticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Garber, M. (1993). Vested interests: Cross-dressing and cultural anxiety. New York: Harper Perennial.
Garber, M., Matlock, J., & Walkowitz, R. (Eds.). (1993). Media spectacles. New York: Routledge.
Garber, M., Parmar, P., & Greyson, J. (Eds.). (1993). Queer looks: Perspectives on lesbian and gay film and video. New York: Routledge.
Glasgow Media Group. (1976). Bad news. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Glasgow Media Group. (1980). More bad news. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Goldstein, A., Jacob, M. J., Rorimer, A., & Singerman, H. (1989). A forest of signs: Art in the crisis of representation. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Greenblatt, S. J. (1992). Learning to curse: Essays in early modern culture. New York: Routledge.
Gronbeck, B., Farrell, T. J., & Soukup, P. A. (Eds.). (1991). Media, consciousness, and culture: Explorations of Walter Ong's thought. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Grossberg, L. (1992). We gotta get out of this place: Popular conservatism and postmodern culture. New York: Routledge.
Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P. A. (Eds.). (1992). Cultural studies. New York: Routledge.
Guiraud, P. (1975). Semiology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Gumbrecht, H. U. (1992). Making sense in life and literature (G.Burns, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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Habermas, J. (1987). The philosophical discourse on modernity: Twelve lectures (F. G.Lawrence, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Habermas, J. (1989). The new conservatism: Cultural criticism and the historians' debate (S. W.Nicholsen, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Haug, W. F. (1971). Critique of commodity aesthetics: Appearance, sexuality, and advertising in capitalist society (R.Bock, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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Holland, N. (1975). Five readers reading. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Hoover, S. M. (1988). Mass media religion: The social sources of the electronic church. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
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Jameson, F. (1971). Marxism and form: Twentieth century dialectical theories of literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Jameson, F. (1981). The political unconscious. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Jameson, F. (1992). The geopolitical aesthetic: Cinema and space in the world system. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Jameson, F. (1992). Signatures of the visible. New York: Routledge.
Jauss, H. R. (1982). Aesthetic experience and literary hermeneutics (M.Shaw, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Jauss, H. R. (1982). Toward an aesthetic of reception (T.Bahti, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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Kellner, D. (1992). The Persian Gulf TV war. Boulder, CO: Westview.
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Larsen, N. (1989). Modernism and hegemony: A materialist critique of aesthetic agencies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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