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Signs of Life in the USA by Sonia Maasik; Jack Solomon - Tenth Edition, 2021 from Macmillan Student Store
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Signs of Life in the USA

Tenth  Edition|©2021  Sonia Maasik; Jack Solomon

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  • About
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About

Write about the topics you love.

Signs of Life in the USA is all about interpreting and writing about pop culture today. This book will encourage you to think critically about the central issues influencing our culture, helping you explore the significance of our shared experiences through your own writing.

Digital Options

E-book

Read online (or offline) with all the highlighting and notetaking tools you need to be successful in this course.

Learn More

Achieve

Achieve is a single, easy-to-use platform proven to engage students for better course outcomes

Learn More

Contents

Table of Contents

[* Indicates material new to this edition]

Contents
Preface for Instructors 

INTRODUCTION
Popular Signs: Or, Everything You Always Knew about American Culture (but Nobody Asked) 
It’s the End of the World as We Know It 
From Folk to For-Profit 
Pop Culture Goes to College 
The Semiotic Method 
Abduction and Overdetermination 
Interpreting Popular Signs: The Revolution will be Reiterated 
The Classroom Connection 
Cultural Mythologies   
Getting Started 
Writing about Popular Culture 
Using Active Reading Strategies 
Prewriting Strategies 
Developing Strong Arguments about Popular Culture 
Conducting a Semiotic Analysis 
Reading Visual Images Actively 
Reading Essays about Popular Culture 
AMY LIN: Barbie: Queen of Dolls and Consumerism [STUDENT ESSAY]
*IRINA BODEA: Banks: Progressive or Traditional [STUDENT ESSAY]
*JEREMY CREEK: The Anglerfish in the Machine: Horror and Re-enchantment in Stranger Things [STUDENT ESSAY]   
Conducting Research and Citing Sources 
SCOTT JASCHIK: A Stand against Wikipedia 
PATTI S. CARAVELLO: Judging Quality on the Web 
TRIP GABRIEL: For Students in Internet Age, No Shame in Copy and Paste 

SECTION 1: FOUNDATIONS

Chapter 1. American Paradox: Culture, Conflict, and Contradiction in the U.S.A. 
BARBARA EHRENREICH: Bright-Sided 
GEORGE PACKER: Celebrating Inequality 
*MARK MANSON: The Disease of More   
*MARK MURPHY: The Uncivil War: How Cultural Sorting of America Divides Us   
ALFRED LUBRANO: The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts 
MARIAH BURTON NELSON: I Won. I’m Sorry. 
WADE GRAHAM: Are We Greening Our Cities, or Just Greenwashing Them?  

Chapter 2. My Selfie, My Self: Identity and Ideology in the New Millennium 
MICHAEL OMI: In Living Color: Race and American Culture 
*RACHELLE HAMPTON: Which People?
*ZAHIR JANMOHAMED: Your Cultural Attire   
AARON DEVOR: Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes 
DEBORAH BLUM: The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?   
MICHAEL HULSHOF-SCHMIDT: What’s in an Acronym? Parsing the LGBTQQIP2SAA Community 
RACHEL LOWRY: Straddling Online and Offline Profiles, Millennials Search for Identity 
*SOPHIE GILBERT: Millennial Burnout is Being Televised   
*DAVE PATTERSON: Shame By a Thousand Looks 
*KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH: What Does It Mean to Look Like Me

SECTION 2: EVERYDAY LIFE

Chapter 3. Consuming Passions: The Culture of American Consumption
LAURENCE SHAMES: The More Factor 
MALCOLM GLADWELL: The Science of Shopping 
*JORDYN HOLMAN: Millennials Tried to Kill the American Mall, But Gen Z Might Save It
MICHAEL POLLAN: Supermarket Pastoral
CHRIS ARNING, What Can Semiotics Contribute to Packaging Design?
TROY PATTERSON: The Politics of the Hoodie
THOMAS FRANK: Commodify Your Dissent
JAMES A. ROBERTS: The Treadmill of Consumption   

Chapter 4. Brought to You B(u)y: The Signs of Advertising
JACK SOLOMON: Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising 
JAMES B. TWITCHELL: What We Are to Advertisers 
STEVE CRAIG: Men’s Men and Women’s Women
JIA TOLENTINO: How "Empowerment" Became Something for Women to Buy 
*DEREK THOMPSON: The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything
JULIET B. SCHOR: Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool
JULIA B. CORBETT: A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World 

Portfolio of Advertisements
Spotify
Buffalo Exchange
California Walnuts
Shinola Detroit
The Shelter Pet Project
Society of Grownups

Chapter 5. The Cloud: Semiotics and the New Media
*JUDY ESTRIN: I Helped Create the Internet, and I’m Worried about What It’s Doing to Young People *ALICIA ELER: There’s a Lot More to a Selfie than Meets the Eye
*JUDITH SHULEVITZ: "Alexa, How Will You Change Us?"  
*JESSE SELL: Gamer Identity
*DAVID COURTWRIGHT: How "Limbic Capitalism" Preys on Our Addicted Brains
NANCY JO SALES: From the Instamatic to Instagram: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers *JACOB SILVERMAN: "Pics or It Didn’t Happen"—The Mantra of the Instagram Era
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Influencing Machines: The Echo Chambers of the Internet
JOHN HERRMAN: Inside Facebook’s (Totally Insane, Unintentionally Gigantic, Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine

SECTION 3: ENTERTAINMENT

Chapter 6. On the Air: Television and Cultural Forms
NEAL GABLER: The Social Networks
BRITTNEY LEVINE BECKMAN: Why We Binge-Watch Stuff We Hate
*SAMANTHA ALLEN:  How Euphoria and Model Hunter Schafer Created the Most Interesting Trans Character on TV
CLAIRE MIYE STANFORD: You’ve Got the Wrong Song: Nashville and Country Music Feminism
EMILY NUSSBAUM: The Aristocrats: The Graphic Arts of Game of Thrones
MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI, The One Paradigm to Rule Them All: Scientism and The Big Bang Theory         *BRITTANY LEVINE BECKMAN, Why We Binge-Watch Stuff We Hate

Chapter 7. The Hollywood Sign: The Culture of American Film
ROBERT B. RAY: The Thematic Paradigm
CHRISTINE FOLCH: Why the West Loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy: A Cultural Explanation
LINDA SEGER: Creating the Myth
*MAYA PHILLIPS: The Narrative Experiment That Is the Marvel Cinematic Universe   
ABRAHAM RIESMAN: What We Talk about When We Talk about Batman and Superman
MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die
*MIKHAIL LYUBANSKY: The Racial Politics of Black Panther
JESSICA HAGEDORN: Asian Women in Film: No Joy, No Luck
MICHAEL PARENTI: Class and Virtue
DAVID DENBY: High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies
*WESLEY MORRIS: Rom-Coms Were Corny and Retrograde. Why Do I Miss Them so Much?  

Chapter 8. Tangled Roots: The Cultural Politics of Popular Music
*NOLAN GLASER: Music Is Supposed to Unify Us.  Is the Streaming Revolution Fragmenting Us Instead?
CLARA McNULTY-FINN: The Evolution of Rap
*NADRA NITTLE: Lil Nas X Isn’t an Anomaly
*JON MEACHAM and TIM MCGRAW: How Country Music Explains America’s Divided History
*CHRISTINA NEWLAND: A Cultural History of the Diva
*DJ LOUIE XIV: Has the Pop Star been Killed?
*DANIEL PERSON: When Did Pop Culture and Nature Part Ways?
*DANI DEAHL: Monsta X and Steve Aoki: How K-Pop Took Over YouTube   

Glossary 

Authors

Sonia Maasik

The coeditors are successful textbook authors who, between them, have over fifty years of teaching experience in the college classroom. Sonia Maasik, a lecturer in the UCLA Writing Programs, has taught writing from developmental to advanced levels, and coordinates training for UCLA writing programs' teaching assistants. Jack Solomon, a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, teaches literature and critical theory, along with his graduate and undergraduate classes on popular cultural semiotics, and is often interviewed by the media for analysis of current events and trends. He is the author of The Signs of Our Time (1988) and Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (1988).  The two together have published Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Sixth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009) and California Dreams and Realities, Third Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).


Jack Solomon

The coeditors are successful textbook authors who, between them, have over fifty years of teaching experience in the college classroom. Sonia Maasik, a lecturer in the UCLA Writing Programs, has taught writing from developmental to advanced levels, and coordinates training for UCLA writing programs' teaching assistants. Jack Solomon, a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, teaches literature and critical theory, along with his graduate and undergraduate classes on popular cultural semiotics, and is often interviewed by the media for analysis of current events and trends. He is the author of The Signs of Our Time (1988) and Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (1988).  The two together have published Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Sixth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009) and California Dreams and Realities, Third Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).


Go digital with the e-book of this text and package with Achieve for Readers and Writers

The only popular culture reader with a critical edge

Write about the topics you love.

Signs of Life in the USA is all about interpreting and writing about pop culture today. This book will encourage you to think critically about the central issues influencing our culture, helping you explore the significance of our shared experiences through your own writing.

E-book

Read online (or offline) with all the highlighting and notetaking tools you need to be successful in this course.

Learn More

Achieve

Achieve is a single, easy-to-use platform proven to engage students for better course outcomes

Learn More

Table of Contents

[* Indicates material new to this edition]

Contents
Preface for Instructors 

INTRODUCTION
Popular Signs: Or, Everything You Always Knew about American Culture (but Nobody Asked) 
It’s the End of the World as We Know It 
From Folk to For-Profit 
Pop Culture Goes to College 
The Semiotic Method 
Abduction and Overdetermination 
Interpreting Popular Signs: The Revolution will be Reiterated 
The Classroom Connection 
Cultural Mythologies   
Getting Started 
Writing about Popular Culture 
Using Active Reading Strategies 
Prewriting Strategies 
Developing Strong Arguments about Popular Culture 
Conducting a Semiotic Analysis 
Reading Visual Images Actively 
Reading Essays about Popular Culture 
AMY LIN: Barbie: Queen of Dolls and Consumerism [STUDENT ESSAY]
*IRINA BODEA: Banks: Progressive or Traditional [STUDENT ESSAY]
*JEREMY CREEK: The Anglerfish in the Machine: Horror and Re-enchantment in Stranger Things [STUDENT ESSAY]   
Conducting Research and Citing Sources 
SCOTT JASCHIK: A Stand against Wikipedia 
PATTI S. CARAVELLO: Judging Quality on the Web 
TRIP GABRIEL: For Students in Internet Age, No Shame in Copy and Paste 

SECTION 1: FOUNDATIONS

Chapter 1. American Paradox: Culture, Conflict, and Contradiction in the U.S.A. 
BARBARA EHRENREICH: Bright-Sided 
GEORGE PACKER: Celebrating Inequality 
*MARK MANSON: The Disease of More   
*MARK MURPHY: The Uncivil War: How Cultural Sorting of America Divides Us   
ALFRED LUBRANO: The Shock of Education: How College Corrupts 
MARIAH BURTON NELSON: I Won. I’m Sorry. 
WADE GRAHAM: Are We Greening Our Cities, or Just Greenwashing Them?  

Chapter 2. My Selfie, My Self: Identity and Ideology in the New Millennium 
MICHAEL OMI: In Living Color: Race and American Culture 
*RACHELLE HAMPTON: Which People?
*ZAHIR JANMOHAMED: Your Cultural Attire   
AARON DEVOR: Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes 
DEBORAH BLUM: The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?   
MICHAEL HULSHOF-SCHMIDT: What’s in an Acronym? Parsing the LGBTQQIP2SAA Community 
RACHEL LOWRY: Straddling Online and Offline Profiles, Millennials Search for Identity 
*SOPHIE GILBERT: Millennial Burnout is Being Televised   
*DAVE PATTERSON: Shame By a Thousand Looks 
*KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH: What Does It Mean to Look Like Me

SECTION 2: EVERYDAY LIFE

Chapter 3. Consuming Passions: The Culture of American Consumption
LAURENCE SHAMES: The More Factor 
MALCOLM GLADWELL: The Science of Shopping 
*JORDYN HOLMAN: Millennials Tried to Kill the American Mall, But Gen Z Might Save It
MICHAEL POLLAN: Supermarket Pastoral
CHRIS ARNING, What Can Semiotics Contribute to Packaging Design?
TROY PATTERSON: The Politics of the Hoodie
THOMAS FRANK: Commodify Your Dissent
JAMES A. ROBERTS: The Treadmill of Consumption   

Chapter 4. Brought to You B(u)y: The Signs of Advertising
JACK SOLOMON: Masters of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising 
JAMES B. TWITCHELL: What We Are to Advertisers 
STEVE CRAIG: Men’s Men and Women’s Women
JIA TOLENTINO: How "Empowerment" Became Something for Women to Buy 
*DEREK THOMPSON: The Four-Letter Code to Selling Just About Anything
JULIET B. SCHOR: Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool
JULIA B. CORBETT: A Faint Green Sell: Advertising and the Natural World 

Portfolio of Advertisements
Spotify
Buffalo Exchange
California Walnuts
Shinola Detroit
The Shelter Pet Project
Society of Grownups

Chapter 5. The Cloud: Semiotics and the New Media
*JUDY ESTRIN: I Helped Create the Internet, and I’m Worried about What It’s Doing to Young People *ALICIA ELER: There’s a Lot More to a Selfie than Meets the Eye
*JUDITH SHULEVITZ: "Alexa, How Will You Change Us?"  
*JESSE SELL: Gamer Identity
*DAVID COURTWRIGHT: How "Limbic Capitalism" Preys on Our Addicted Brains
NANCY JO SALES: From the Instamatic to Instagram: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers *JACOB SILVERMAN: "Pics or It Didn’t Happen"—The Mantra of the Instagram Era
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Influencing Machines: The Echo Chambers of the Internet
JOHN HERRMAN: Inside Facebook’s (Totally Insane, Unintentionally Gigantic, Hyperpartisan) Political-Media Machine

SECTION 3: ENTERTAINMENT

Chapter 6. On the Air: Television and Cultural Forms
NEAL GABLER: The Social Networks
BRITTNEY LEVINE BECKMAN: Why We Binge-Watch Stuff We Hate
*SAMANTHA ALLEN:  How Euphoria and Model Hunter Schafer Created the Most Interesting Trans Character on TV
CLAIRE MIYE STANFORD: You’ve Got the Wrong Song: Nashville and Country Music Feminism
EMILY NUSSBAUM: The Aristocrats: The Graphic Arts of Game of Thrones
MASSIMO PIGLIUCCI, The One Paradigm to Rule Them All: Scientism and The Big Bang Theory         *BRITTANY LEVINE BECKMAN, Why We Binge-Watch Stuff We Hate

Chapter 7. The Hollywood Sign: The Culture of American Film
ROBERT B. RAY: The Thematic Paradigm
CHRISTINE FOLCH: Why the West Loves Sci-Fi and Fantasy: A Cultural Explanation
LINDA SEGER: Creating the Myth
*MAYA PHILLIPS: The Narrative Experiment That Is the Marvel Cinematic Universe   
ABRAHAM RIESMAN: What We Talk about When We Talk about Batman and Superman
MATT ZOLLER SEITZ: The Offensive Movie Cliché That Won’t Die
*MIKHAIL LYUBANSKY: The Racial Politics of Black Panther
JESSICA HAGEDORN: Asian Women in Film: No Joy, No Luck
MICHAEL PARENTI: Class and Virtue
DAVID DENBY: High-School Confidential: Notes on Teen Movies
*WESLEY MORRIS: Rom-Coms Were Corny and Retrograde. Why Do I Miss Them so Much?  

Chapter 8. Tangled Roots: The Cultural Politics of Popular Music
*NOLAN GLASER: Music Is Supposed to Unify Us.  Is the Streaming Revolution Fragmenting Us Instead?
CLARA McNULTY-FINN: The Evolution of Rap
*NADRA NITTLE: Lil Nas X Isn’t an Anomaly
*JON MEACHAM and TIM MCGRAW: How Country Music Explains America’s Divided History
*CHRISTINA NEWLAND: A Cultural History of the Diva
*DJ LOUIE XIV: Has the Pop Star been Killed?
*DANIEL PERSON: When Did Pop Culture and Nature Part Ways?
*DANI DEAHL: Monsta X and Steve Aoki: How K-Pop Took Over YouTube   

Glossary 

Sonia Maasik

The coeditors are successful textbook authors who, between them, have over fifty years of teaching experience in the college classroom. Sonia Maasik, a lecturer in the UCLA Writing Programs, has taught writing from developmental to advanced levels, and coordinates training for UCLA writing programs' teaching assistants. Jack Solomon, a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, teaches literature and critical theory, along with his graduate and undergraduate classes on popular cultural semiotics, and is often interviewed by the media for analysis of current events and trends. He is the author of The Signs of Our Time (1988) and Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (1988).  The two together have published Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Sixth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009) and California Dreams and Realities, Third Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).


Jack Solomon

The coeditors are successful textbook authors who, between them, have over fifty years of teaching experience in the college classroom. Sonia Maasik, a lecturer in the UCLA Writing Programs, has taught writing from developmental to advanced levels, and coordinates training for UCLA writing programs' teaching assistants. Jack Solomon, a professor of English at California State University, Northridge, teaches literature and critical theory, along with his graduate and undergraduate classes on popular cultural semiotics, and is often interviewed by the media for analysis of current events and trends. He is the author of The Signs of Our Time (1988) and Discourse and Reference in the Nuclear Age (1988).  The two together have published Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, Sixth Edition (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009) and California Dreams and Realities, Third Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).


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