Horrible Prettiness

Horrible Prettiness
Author: Robert Clyde Allen
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Total Pages: 372
Release: 1991
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 9780807843161

A critical history of American burlesque traces its social, demographic, and cultural changes

America's Musical Stage

America's Musical Stage
Author: Julian Mates
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 286
Release: 1987-08-14
Genre: Music
ISBN: 0313389705

"[This book is] a comprehensive illustrated history of the U.S. musical from its colonial origins to the present, tracing the connections and influences of the minstrel show, operetta, burlesque, melodrama, revues, circus, dance, musical comedy, the Broadway opera, the book musical and other forms. . . . Further, Mates introduces readers to inside stuff--the various types of musical performers." Variety Mates shows the musical stage in all its guises--from burlesque to musical comedy to grand opera--from its beginnings in pre-Revolutionary America to the present day. He deals sensitively with the recurrent aesthetic question of popular versus highbrow art and also looks at critical reactions to popular theatrical forms of musical entertainment. He introduces the reader to various types of theatrical companies, the changing repertory, and the many kinds of musical performers who have animated the stage. Mates focuses on the creative relationships between the different forms of opera, the minstrel show and circus, melodrama and dance, burlesque, revue, vaudeville, and musical comedy.

Hop on Pop

Hop on Pop
Author: Henry Jenkins III
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 761
Release: 2003-01-23
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0822383500

Hop on Pop showcases the work of a new generation of scholars—from fields such as media studies, literature, cinema, and cultural studies—whose writing has been informed by their ongoing involvement with popular culture and who draw insight from their lived experiences as critics, fans, and consumers. Proceeding from their deep political commitment to a new kind of populist grassroots politics, these writers challenge old modes of studying the everyday. As they rework traditional scholarly language, they search for new ways to write about our complex and compelling engagements with the politics and pleasures of popular culture and sketch a new and lively vocabulary for the field of cultural studies. The essays cover a wide and colorful array of subjects including pro wrestling, the computer games Myst and Doom, soap operas, baseball card collecting, the Tour de France, karaoke, lesbian desire in the Wizard of Oz, Internet fandom for the series Babylon 5, and the stress-management industry. Broader themes examined include the origins of popular culture, the aesthetics and politics of performance, and the social and cultural processes by which objects and practices are deemed tasteful or tasteless. The commitment that binds the contributors is to an emergent perspective in cultural studies, one that engages with popular culture as the culture that "sticks to the skin," that becomes so much a part of us that it becomes increasingly difficult to examine it from a distance. By refusing to deny or rationalize their own often contradictory identifications with popular culture, the contributors ensure that the volume as a whole reflects the immediacy and vibrancy of its objects of study. Hop on Pop will appeal to those engaged in the study of popular culture, American studies, cultural studies, cinema and visual studies, as well as to the general educated reader. Contributors. John Bloom, Gerry Bloustein, Aniko Bodroghkozy, Diane Brooks, Peter Chvany, Elana Crane, Alexander Doty, Rob Drew, Stephen Duncombe, Nick Evans, Eric Freedman, Joy Fuqua, Tony Grajeda, Katherine Green, John Hartley, Heather Hendershot, Henry Jenkins, Eithne Johnson, Louis Kaplan, Maria Koundoura, Sharon Mazer, Anna McCarthy, Tara McPherson, Angela Ndalianis, Edward O’Neill, Catherine Palmer, Roberta Pearson, Elayne Rapping, Eric Schaefer, Jane Shattuc, Greg Smith, Ellen Strain, Matthew Tinkhom, William Uricchio, Amy Villarego, Robyn Warhol, Charles Weigl, Alan Wexelblat, Pamela Robertson Wojcik, Nabeel Zuberi

"When I'm Bad, I'm Better"

Author: Marybeth Hamilton
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 1997-12-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780520210943

In a world of trendsetting film icons, few are more familiar than Mae West. Yet for all her public controversy, West is also a mystery. Marybeth Hamilton combines elements of biography, cultural analysis, and social history to unmask West and reveal her commercial savvy, willpower, and truly shocking theatrical transgressions.

Undressed for Success

Undressed for Success
Author: B. Foley
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2016-09-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137040890

Using the tools of performance studies, gender theory, and cultural history, Brenda Foley explores the striking similarities between beauty pageantry and striptease. For example, women in both project a 'normal' femininity and adhere to a strict hierarchy (Miss America contestants look down upon Miss Universe contestants, while theatrical 'burlesque artists' saw themselves as far above mere carnival strippers). Undressed for Success collects extensive primary source research - newspapers, journals, trade publications, photography collections, press releases, memoirs, and interviews with both strippers and pageant contestants - and employs a wide array of gender, feminist, and performance theory to analyze them.

American Studies

American Studies
Author: Jack Salzman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 980
Release: 1986-08-29
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9780521266871

A major three-volume bibliography, including an additional supplement, of an annotated listing of American Studies monographs published between 1900 and 1988.

The American Women's Almanac

The American Women's Almanac
Author: Deborah G. Felder
Publisher: Visible Ink Press
Total Pages: 1251
Release: 2020-02-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1578597110

Celebrate the vital roles and vibrant experiences of women in America! The most complete and affordable single-volume reference on women’s history available today, The American Women’s Almanac: 500 Years of Vitality, Triumph and Excellence is a unique and valuable resource devoted to illustrating the moving and often lost history of women in America. It is a fascinating mix of biographies, little-known or misunderstood historical facts, enlightening essays on significant legislation and movements, and numerous photographs and illustrations. Honoring and celebrating achievements from the First Nations women and the French Huguenot Women of Fort Caroline to the unprecedented number of ethnically diverse women running for modern office, it provides insights on the long-ignored influence, inspiration, and impact of women on U.S. society and culture. From the first indigenous women in North America and the dangers and hardships of the 15th, 16th, and 17th century journeys to the New World to the continual push against patriarchal political, military, corporate, and societal systems and expectations, this essential book illustrates the important events and figures surrounding the suffrage movement; literature, art, and music; business leaders and breakthroughs; political history and office holders; advances in science and medicine; and other vital topics. Learn about the Nineteenth Amendment; Title IX; the legalization of birth control in 1966; the dramatic increase in women attending colleges and universities in the United States; the limitations of 19th-century women’s fashion on athletes; and so much more. The most illustrious figures, as well as less-known stars, are revealed in The American Women’s Almanac, including Abigail Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Maya Angelou, Susan B. Anthony, Ruth Asawa, Clara Barton, Sara Blakely, Nellie Bly, Tarana Burke, Annie Jump Cannon, Hattie Wyatt Caraway, Carrie Chapman Catt, Bessie Coleman, Rebecca Harding Davis, Maya Deren, Amelia Earhart, Sarah Emma Edmonds, Carly Fiorina, Dian Fossey, Helen Frankenthaler, Aretha Franklin, Temple Grandin, Mia Hamm, Anna Mae Hays, Grace Hopper, Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, Barbara Jordan, Helen Keller, Julie Krone, Juliette Gordon Low, Dolley Madison, Maria Montoya Martinez, Lucretia Mott, Sara Nelson, Lynn Nottage, Sandra Day O’Connor, Pocahontas, Letty Cotton Pogrebin, E. Annie Proulx, Sally Ride, Sacagawea, Bernice Sandler, Margaret Sanger, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Gloria Steinem, Lucy Stone, Pat Summitt, Amy Tan, Martha Washington, Randi Weingarten, Gladys West, Susan Wojcicki, Kristi Yamaguchi, and approximately 350 others. This important reference also has a helpful bibliography, an extensive index, a timeline, and 550 photos, adding to its usefulness. Commemorating and honoring the achievements, people, and essential influence of women in American history, The American Women’s Almanac brings to light all there is to admire and discover about these incredible women.

The Art of Artertainment: Nobrow, American Style

The Art of Artertainment: Nobrow, American Style
Author: Peter Swirski
Publisher: Vernon Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2019-03-31
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1622734637

Artertainment is more than a novel aesthetic term reflecting the fact that art and entertainment have cross-pollinated each other throughout history. It is a creative strategy that purposely intertwines highbrow and lowbrow aesthetics in the name of reaching the connoisseurs and the masses. The Art of Artertainment sets out to unravel the jumble of aesthetic faultlines and prejudices found wherever we find artistic crossovers—which is to say, everywhere. Revisionist, iconoclastic, and artertaining in its own right, it provides a new framework for the analysis of American nobrow culture from the Colonial times to the digitally turbocharged present.