In High Theory/Low Culture, Mikita Brottman uses the tools of "high" cultural theory to examine many areas of today's popular culture, including style magazines, sports, shopping, tabloid newspapers, horror movies and pornography. In doing so, she not only demonstrates the practical use of "high" theory as it relates to our everyday world, but she also investigates the kinds of "low" culture that are regularly dismissed by academic scholars. Through a close examination of these cultural forms, Brottman reveals how the kinds of popular culture that we usually take for granted are, in fact, far more complex and sophisticated than is normally assumed.
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"In this brilliant book, Mikita Brottman penetrates the surface of pop culture texts, from magazines and tabloids, to horror movies and erotic flicks, to provide a truly discerning theory as to why people respond so emotionally to them. Unlike the bland, trendy, pseudo-sophisticated critiques of pop culture by many academic pundits that now saturate the bookstands, Brottman shows that popular forms of entertainment are emotionally powerful because of their capacity for being infinitely meaningful at different levels of psychic life, from the sacred to the profane...Brottman's book is both witty and insightful. It is, in the jargon of pop culture, a 'great read.'"--Marcel Danesi, University of Toronto
"Too many academic studies of popular culture are fans' tracts masquerading as serious analysis. Not this one. Acknowledging the problems as well as the pleasures to be had in consuming popular culture, this book is for anyone who wants to work through those ambivalent feelings in order to enjoy the pleasures more fully, rather than just relaxing into uncritical fandom. In writing High Theory/Low Culture Mikita Brottman has done us all a real favor."--Andrew Blake, University College Winchester
"High Theory/Low Culture tackles the question of how people actually enjoy and appreciate popular culture. Mikita Brottman sidesteps condemnations of 'the popular', instead focusing positively on everyday, ordinary aesthetics. Eclectic case studies, ranging from football fans to pornography, showcase to striking effect the work of key theorists such as Bakhtin, Barthes, and Lacan. Highlighting the complexities of low culture, and downsizing the difficulties of high theory, this is a skillful introduction to the study of popular culture's pleasures."--Matt Hills, author of Fan Cultures and The Pleasures of Horror
"High Theory/Low Culture, which is less defensive of pop culture, but works to apply the art of high criticism and theory to the often gutterized world of fashion magazines, tabloids and horror movies." --Chip Ross, Blogcritics.org
"Too many academic studies of popular culture are fans' tracts masquerading as serious analysis. Not this one. Acknowledging the problems as well as the pleasures to be had in consuming popular culture, this book is for anyone who wants to work through those ambivalent feelings in order to enjoy the pleasures more fully, rather than just relaxing into uncritical fandom. In writing High Theory/Low Culture Mikita Brottman has done us all a real favor."--Andrew Blake, University College Winchester
"High Theory/Low Culture tackles the question of how people actually enjoy and appreciate popular culture. Mikita Brottman sidesteps condemnations of 'the popular', instead focusing positively on everyday, ordinary aesthetics. Eclectic case studies, ranging from football fans to pornography, showcase to striking effect the work of key theorists such as Bakhtin, Barthes, and Lacan. Highlighting the complexities of low culture, and downsizing the difficulties of high theory, this is a skillful introduction to the study of popular culture's pleasures."--Matt Hills, author of Fan Cultures and The Pleasures of Horror
"High Theory/Low Culture, which is less defensive of pop culture, but works to apply the art of high criticism and theory to the often gutterized world of fashion magazines, tabloids and horror movies." --Chip Ross, Blogcritics.org
About the Author
Mikita Brottman is Professor of Language and Literature, Maryland Institute College of Art. She is the editor of Car Crash Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001) and author of three books on the horror film.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well-informed cultural analysis,
By Raymond Trumble "raytrum" (Jacksonville, KS) - See all my reviews
This review is from: High Theory/Low Culture (Paperback)
This is a very clear, intelligent cultural analysis of Barthes, Bakhtin and Lacan, and how their work can be applied to today's popular culture (most of the examples are British, but not too obscure). Nice, concise summaries of theorists and their work.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Mikhail M. Bakhtin is gradually emerging as one of the leading theorists of the twentieth century, not only in literary circles, but wherever the fundamental nature of "literature" and "culture" is taken into question. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
encratic language, jock jams, genre barriers, horror texts, tabloid discourse, plural text, red underpants, tartan trousers, horror fictions, popular cultural texts, style magazines, mirror phase, shopping process Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Covent Garden, The Sun, Page Three, United States, News of the World, George Romero, Loose Ends, Dawn of the Dead, James Twitchell, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, New York, Sex Pistols, Stephen King, Comics Campaign Council, Elements of Semiology, Lovely Lisa's Scot the Lot, Night of the Living Dead, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Three Essays, Bishop of Gloucester, Jonathan Raban, Joseph Grixti, Martin Barker, Philadelphia Eagles New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Mikhail M. Bakhtin is gradually emerging as one of the leading theorists of the twentieth century, not only in literary circles, but wherever the fundamental nature of "literature" and "culture" is taken into question. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
encratic language, jock jams, genre barriers, horror texts, tabloid discourse, plural text, red underpants, tartan trousers, horror fictions, popular cultural texts, style magazines, mirror phase, shopping process Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Covent Garden, The Sun, Page Three, United States, News of the World, George Romero, Loose Ends, Dawn of the Dead, James Twitchell, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, New York, Sex Pistols, Stephen King, Comics Campaign Council, Elements of Semiology, Lovely Lisa's Scot the Lot, Night of the Living Dead, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, Three Essays, Bishop of Gloucester, Jonathan Raban, Joseph Grixti, Martin Barker, Philadelphia Eagles New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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- The Pleasure of the Text by Roland Barthes on 12 pages
- Rabelais and His World by Mikhail Bakhtin on 6 pages
- Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero on 5 pages
- Three Essays On The Theory Of Sexuality (Basic Books Classics) by Sigmund Freud on 4 pages
- Stephen King's Danse Macabre by Stephen King on 4 pages
See all 100 books this book cites
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