Varieties of Urban Experience: The American City and the Practice of Culture: Lyn H. Lofland: University Press of America

Varieties of Urban Experience

The American City and the Practice of Culture

Varieties of Urban Experience

The American City and the Practice of Culture

Description

Cities play an important role in contemporary American culture as sites of commerce, trade, entertainment, and the arts. We can learn a lot about what Americans believe and how they act upon those beliefs by looking at the ways our cultural dramas are continually played out on the city's stage. The complexity and sheer variety of urban experiences can be overwhelming. In clear prose, the essays in this volume decipher some of these experiences and offer fresh analytical insights. Without relying on one theoretical, disciplinary, or ideological framework, the contributors collectively explore the city as an identity marker, an artist's muse, a cultural hybrid, and a place many call home. Issues related to gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and power are present in American cities and are therefore present within this collection. Most importantly, these essays acknowledge the hard work required to keep something as large and complex as a city running. The authors show how people practice culture and the ways that culture is expressed through myths, rituals, images, and places.

Chapter 1 Foreword
Chapter 2 Acknowledgements
Chapter 3 1. Cultural Analysis and the American Urban Landscape
Chapter 4 2. Religion in the City: Confronting the "Other" Every Day
Chapter 5 3. Community, Commerce, and Consumption: Businesses as Civic Associations
Chapter 6 4. The Occupation of New Orleans: Reactive Performance and the Creation of Place
Chapter 7 5. The Chrysler Building as Sacred Space in Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3
Chapter 8 6. Artland and Barnsdall Park: Cultural Politics, Public Art, and Competing Visions of Civic Space in 1920s Los Angeles
Chapter 9 7. The Los Angeles Anti-Myth and Southern California Sense of Place: Navigating a Mediated Landscape
Chapter 10 8. Between the Past and the Future: The "Present" Politics of U.S. Immigration
Chapter 11 9. Italian American Urban Landscape: Images of Social and Cultural Capital
Chapter 12 10. Lost in Boston
Chapter 13 About the Contributors
Chapter 14 Index

Product details

Published	Apr 24 2006
Format	Hardback
Edition	1st
Extent	212
ISBN	9780761833864
Imprint	University Press of America
Dimensions	9 x 6 inches
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing