Books in the CultureAmerica series

For millions of moviegoers unable to see the original stage version of West Side Story, director Robert Wise's adaptation was a cinematic gift that brought a Broadway hit to a mass audience. Ernesto Acevedo-Munoz argues that Wise's film was not only hugely popular, but that it was also an artistic triumph that marked an important departure in the history of American movie making.

Examines the efforts of Harlem Renaissance artists and writers to create a hybrid expression of black identity that drew on their past while participating in contemporary American culture. This book investigates the Renaissance print culture, arguing that illustrations became the most timely and often most radical visual products of the movement.

Firsthand experience and research shed light on claims that Euro Disneyland is nothing but American cultural imperialism. A former employee goes beyond media bites and academic scorn to examine Europe's love/hate relationship with the park and some of the undiscussed issues surrounding it.

The quarterback sends his wide receiver deep. The crowd gasps as he launches the ball. And when he hits his man, the team's fans roar with approvalespecially those with the deep pockets. Make no mistake; college football is big business, played with one eye on the score, the other on the bottom line. But was this always the case? Brian M. Ingrassia here offers the most incisive account to date of the origins of college football, tracing the sport's evolution from a gentlemen's pastime to a multi-million dollar enterprise that made athletics a permanent fixture on our nation's campuses and cemented college football's place in American culture. He takes readers back to the late 1800s to tell how schools embraced the sport as a way to get the public interested in higher learning-and then how football's immediate popularity overwhelmed campuses and helped create the beast we know today. Contrary to conventional wisdom, Ingrassia proves that the academy did not initially resist the inclusion of athletics; rather, progressive reformers and professors embraced football as a way to make the ivory tower less elitist. With its emphasis on disciplined teamwork and spectatorship, football was seen as a "e;middlebrow"e; way to make the university more accessible to the general public. What it really did was make athletics a permanent fixture on campus with its own set of professional experts, bureaucracies, and ostentatious cathedrals. Ingrassia examines the early football programs at universities like Michigan, Stanford, Ohio State, and others, then puts those histories in the context of Progressive Era culture, including insights from coaches like Georgia Tech's John Heisman and Notre Dame's Knute Rockne. He describes how reforms emerged out of incidents such as Teddy Roosevelt's son being injured on the field and a section of grandstands collapsing at the University of Chicago. He also touches on some of the problems facing current day college football and shows us that we haven't come far from those initial arguments more than a century ago. The Rise of Gridiron University shows us where and how it all began, highlighting college football's essential role in shaping the modern university-and by extension American intellectual culture. It should have wide appeal among students of American studies and sports history, as well as fans of college football curious to learn how their game became a cultural force in a matter of a few decades.

Exploring conflicting representations of Youngstown across a century of growth, struggle and heartbreaking decline, this study looks at the roles of work and memory. It acts as a cautionary tale about corporate responsibility in an era of globalization.

Easy to use, effective, and safe: who couldn't love synthetic pesticides? Apparently most Americans still do. Why - in the face of dire warnings, rising expense, and declining effectiveness - do we cling to our chemicals? Michelle Mart's book, a cultural history of pesticide use in postwar America, offers an answer.

For most of us, clicking "e;like"e; on social media has become fairly routine. For a Marine, clicking "e;like"e; from the battlefield lets his social network know he's alive. This is the first time in the history of modern warfare that US troops have direct, instantaneous connection to civilian life back home. Lisa Ellen Silvestri's Friended at the Front documents the revolutionary change in the way we communicate across fronts. Social media, Silvestri contends, changes what it's like to be at war.Based on in-person interviews and online fieldwork with US Marines, Friended at the Front explores the new media habits, attitudes, and behaviors of troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some of the complications that emerge in their wake. The book pays particular attention to the way US troops use Facebook and YouTube to narrate their experiences to civilian network members, to each other, and, not least of all, to themselves. After she reviews evolving military guidelines for social media engagement, Silvestri explores specific practices amongst active duty Marines such as posting photos and producing memes. Her interviews, observations, and research reveal how social network sites present both an opportunity to connect with civilians back home, as well as an obligation to do soone that can become controversial for troops in a war zone.Much like the war on terror itself, the boundaries, expectations, and dangers associated with social media are amorphous and under constant negotiation. Friended at the Front explains how our communication landscape changes what it is like to go to war for individual service members, their loved ones, and for the American public at large.

Breaks new ground in exploring the complex link between Indian identity and the emergence of tourism in the Southwest, the layers of meaning that surrounded the branding process of "Indian-Made" goods, and the connections between a consumer-oriented marketplace and the production of race.

Focusing on the process of Richard Nixon's continuous reinvention, this book reveals a figure who continues to expose key fault lines in the nation's self-definition. It offers perceptions not only of the man but of Nixon's version of himself - contrasted with those who would interpret him differently.

A study of the African-American cinematic vision in silent film, concentrating on African American-produced and -directed films and white independent productions of all-black features. Gerald R. Butters uses these ""race movies"" to separate cinematic myth from historical reality.

Reminding us that most of the images on early TV were decidedly Caucasian and directed at predominantly white audiences, this book revisits a time and space that some might miss for its simplicity and innocence. The author entreats us to look beyond such nostalgia, to see how, even in its earliest days, television had become a powerful mediator.

It is an institution that seems almost hopelessly out of date, a social relic of bygone times. The very word ""debutante"" evokes images of prim, poised beauty, expensive gowns, and sumptuous balls, all of which seem anachronistic in these post-women's liberation times. This work reveals, debdom in America is alive and well and ever evolving.

In the world of hip-hop, ""keeping it real"" has always been a primary goal - and realness takes on special meaning as rappers mold their images for street cred and increasingly measure authenticity by ghetto-centric notions of ""Who's badder?"" This book celebrates hip-hop and confronts the cult of authenticity that defines its essential character.

The ghostly presence stands in for numerous other ""voices"" in a range of American films. In this synthesis of film and politics, Ray Pratt aims to show how such movies are deeply rooted in post-war American culture and continue to exert an enormous influence on the national imagination.

From figurines to bumper stickers, Broadway to prime-time TV, angels have taken over America. This study looks objectively at the place of angels in American culture. It mixes theology, psychology, sociology of religion, gender theory, and even film criticism to create an unusually well-rounded survey of a uniquely American phenomenon.

Chronicles how Indians came to represent themselves in Wild West shows, Hollywood films, sports, music, and their use of the automobile. This book examines longstanding stereotypes of Indians as invariably violent, suggesting that, even as such views continued in American popular culture, they were also transformed by the violence at Wounded Knee.

The 70s witnessed economic decline in America, coupled with a series of foreign policy failures, events that created an air of unease and uncertainty. This volume examines the ways in which Americans responded to a changing world and sought to redefine themselves.