Summary
Contents
Subject index
Witty and accessible, Popular Culture Genres is a fascinating study of genres and genre criticism. Author Arthur Asa Berger empowers readers to make their own analysis by providing the methods and examples of good criticism. Part I deals with genres from a critical perspective, asking questions such as: How do the conventions of different genres affect the creation and production of texts and the audiences of those texts? Do certain genres have significant social and political implications? And, how do genres evolve? Part II takes a look at five “classic” popular texts (in both their novel and film versions). Viewing these works in the context of their respective genres is not only instructive in nature but captivating reading as well.
Propp, de Saussure, and the Narrative
Propp, de Saussure, and the Narrative
Narratives, it was suggested in Chapter 1, are one of the dominant genres found on television and in the media in general. But what exactly is a narrative or story (or in the language used in this book, a drama) and how do narratives work? This is a problem that has puzzled critics and literary theorists since Aristotle's time and there are many books on the subject—books that tend to be highly technical and rather esoteric. There is a scholar whose contributions are both enormously important and highly accessible, a Russian folklorist named Vladimir Propp, whose theories will now be considered. In the discussion that follows, Propp's theories will be connected to those of ...
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