American Mythologies

by Marshall Blonsky

Book Overview

What's it like to witness the moments that define a culture? Marshall Blonsky spent four years on three continents as a fly on the wall-- albeit one with a doctorate in semiotics--watching the dreammakers of international culture construct the attitudes and lifestyles of the early 90s: Giorgio Armani, in his Milan studio, sketching a faux humble sack suit that will usher in the penitent 90s...Vanna White in gold lam , sitting in her private hair studio...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195050622
• ISBN13: 9780195050622
• Release Date: July 1992
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 560 Pages
• Weight: 2.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Rorty is Sporty, but Blonsky is the Bombsky

Happy millionaires, floating above money. Tastemakers and models where the substance of sign are widgets produced from the mysteries of Eurocentric sytle. Even anti-stye is currency spoken at the proper moment. Castles in the sky held up by anti-gravity - the collective will of the subordinate and subordinated who dare not look the other way. Whether it is the act of looking away or looking as in appearing the Other way, those in thrall refuse to ignore the central process, their ennobling whitewash without which they become the non-audience, those left outside the theater of the West. Marshall Blonsky, in American Mythologies, examines the symbolic discourse between the performers and the performed upon as if to examine the state of the ceiling in the house whose walls have already collapsed. Yet it remains a valid work because while we all stand in the cold ruins, the ceiling remains frozen in mid-air suspended like our disbelief, while from its reflections we measure our steps. As intellectual excavator and personal ruminator par excellence, Blonsky will become the McLuhan of the 21st Century.

mi primera introduccion a la semiotica

Con este libro, el cual no entendi hasta mucho mas tarde como con algunas grandes obras, tuve mi primer gran encuentro con la semiotica, el estudio de los simbolos, y fue tambien la primera vez que lei a umberto eco. me gusto mucho su descripcion de una silla y de sus diferentes significados dependiendo de muchos factores. este libro trata de analizar la cultura norteamericana, la simbologia, el pop art, usando la semiotica y lo hace de una manera magistral aunque a veces no es muy clara.excelente lectura. LUIS MENDEZ luismendez@codetel.net.do