Uncommon Cultures : Popular Culture and Post-Modernism

New York, NY, U.S.A.: Routledge, 1989. First Printing . Trade Paperback. Near Fine. 6" x 9. 157 Pages Indexed. Top of front cover has 2 crease that also affected first five pages. No other marks on the flawless interior. Tight, clean and straight book that was probably never read. The author says that until recently culture was conceived of as a grand Hotel, a massive and privileged edifice in which all textual production was choreographed according to some central authority. To day the master system of our culture is under attack. Collins has a very simple premise: that post-modernism and popular culture, terms not frequently set side by side, have together undermined that master system. By looking at a wide range of texts and forms, the detective novel, women's films comic books, performance art, architecture, and so on. Collins investigates what happens to the notion of culture once different discourses begin to envision that culutre in conflicting ways, constructing often contradictory visions of it simultaneously. He engages some of the most hotly contested issues of contemporary cultural analysis. He will no doubt engage a broad range of readers interested in culutral criticism, postmodernism, and theories of popular culture. The author is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Theatre at Notre Dame.