Varieties of urban experience : the American city and the practice of culture / edited by Michael Ian Borer.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Borer, Michael Ian.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urbanization--United States.

Urbanization.

United States.

City and town life--United States.

City and town life.

Sociology, Urban--United States.

Sociology, Urban.

Physical Description:

vi, 203 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham, MD : University Press of America, [2006]

Summary:

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. The essays in this volume decipher some of these experiences with clear prose and fresh analytical insights. Without relying on one theoretical, disciplinary, or ideological framework, the contributors collectively explore the city as an identity marker, as an artist's muse, as a cultural hybrid, and as 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.

Contents:

1 Cultural Analysis and the American Urban Landscape / Michael Ian Borer 1

2 Religion in the City: Confronting the "Other" Every Day / Rhys H. Williams 21

3 Community, Commerce, and Consumption: Businesses as Civic Associations / Michael Ian Borer, Daniel J. Monti, Jr. 39

4 The Occupation of New Orleans: Reactive Performance and the Creation of Place / Lisa Carolyn Henry Benham 63

5 The Chrysler Building as Sacred Space in Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 / Thomas Nesbit 81

6 Artland and Barnsdall Park: Cultural Politics, Public Art and Competing Visions of Civic Space in 1920s Los Angeles / Sarah L. Schrank 97

7 The Los Angeles Anti-Myth and Southern California Sense of Place: Navigating A Mediated Landscape / Sharon Sekhon 111

8 Between the Past and the Future: The "Present" Politics of U.S. Immigration / Kevin Keogan 133

9 Italian American Urban Landscapes: Images of Social and Cultural Capital / Jerome Krase 155

10 Lost in Boston / Daniel J. Monti, Jr. 181.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0761833862

0761833870

OCLC:

69660383

Publisher Number:

9780761833864 (cloth : alk. ppr.)

9780761833871 (pbk. : alk. ppr.)