About the Book
A best-selling popular culture reader, The Contemporary Reader offers over 70 reading selections focused on current cultural issues and organized around ten engaging, provocative topics that engage students to read and write critically.
This reader includes more contemporary selections than any other popular culture reader on the market with over 90% of the readings written in the last five years. The text's ten tightly focused thematic chapters cover a range of writing on interesting issues familiar to students and relevant to our times.
Table of Contents:
New readings are marked with an asterisk.
Preface.
Introduction: How to Read and Write Critically.
What Is Critical Thinking?
Why Read Critically?
How to Read Critically.
Sample Essay for Analysis: “"Now, Cut that Out!,” John Leo.
Keep a Journal on What You Read.
Annotate What You Read.
Outline What You Read.
Summarize What You Read.
Question What You Read.
Analyze What You Read.
What is Critical Writing?
Developing Ideas.
Narrowing the Topic.
Identifying Your Audience.
Developing a Thesis.
Understanding Your Paper's Objective.
Researching.
Selecting Sources for Your Paper.
Documenting Sources.
Organizing Your Paper.
Drafting Your Essay.
Writing Your Introduction.
Developing Paragraphs and Making Transitions.
Concluding Well.
Editing and Revising.
Using Active Voice.
Grammar and Punctuation.
Proofreading Effectively. Approaching Visuals Critically.
1. Fashion and Flesh: The Images We Project.
“Never Too Buff,” John Cloud.
* “What I Think About the Fashion World,” Liz Jones.
* Visuals: NEDA Ad.
* “Weighing In,” Sandra Hurtes.
“My Hips, My Caderas,” Alisa Valdes.
* “Scar,” Cythia Audet.
* “The Skinny on Small,” Diane Sepanski.
“The Bald Individualist,” Ptolemy Tompkins.
“The Ugly Truth About Beauty,” Dave Barry.
Viewpoints.
“A Man's Guide to Slimming Couture,” Scott McKeen.
“Why Do We Get To Laugh at Fat Guys?” Catherine Lawson.
Research Issue.
“The Beauty of Symmetry,” Elizabeth Snead.
2. Advertising: Wanting it, Selling it.
“Targeting a New World,” Joseph Turow.
* “Advertising and the Invention of Postmodernity,” Ken Sanes.
* “Lunchbox Hegemony,” Dan Cook.
* “A Brand by Any Other Name,” Douglas Rushkoff.
* “A (Mild) Defense of Luxury,” James Twitchell.
Viewpoints.
“With These Words, I Can Sell You Anything,” William Lutz. “The Language of Advertising,” Charles A. O'Neill.
Research Issue.
“Cool Clothes for Identical Zombies,” Damien Cave. A Portfolio of Advertisements.
3. Television: For Better or For Worse.
“Can Television Improve Us?” Jane Rosenzweig.
“The Man Who Counts the Killings,” Scott Stossel.
* “TV's War of Words,” Deborah Tannen.
* “The Great TV Debate,” Jason Kelly.
* “Window on Reality,” Elaine Showalter.
* “TV News: All the World in Pictures,” Neil Postman and Steve Powers.
Viewpoints.
“TV Can Be a Good Parent,” Ariel Gore.
“American Academy of Pediatrics Policy Statement”
Research Issues.
“Television and African Americans,” Kate Tuttle.
4. The Family in Flux: Love and Marriage.
“Family: Idea, Institution, and Controversy,” Betty G. Farrell.
“The New Nostalgia,” Rosalind Barnett and Caryl Rivers.
* “Are the Conservatives Right?” Alex Kotlowitz.
* “Nostalgia as Ideology,” Stephanie Coontz.
“Did I Miss Something?” Lowell Putnam.
* “Unmarried Bliss,” Marshall Miller and Dorian Solot.
* “What's Love Got to Do With It?” Anjula Razdan.
Viewpoints.
* “Unveiled,” Andrew Sullivan. “The Danger of Same Sex Marriage.” Jeff Jacoby.
Visual: Wasserman's View: Assault on Family Values (cartoon).
Research Issue.
“Cohabitating Is Not the Same as Commitment,” Karen S. Peterson.
* 5. Humans, Inc.: Cloning and Our Genetic Future.
* “Baby, It's You and You and You,” Nancy Gibbs.
* “Designer Babies,” Sharon Begley. Human Genome cartoon.
* “The Last Human,” Gregory Stock.
* “Enough,” Bill McKibben.
“Yuppie Eugenics,” Ruth Hubbard and Stuart Newman.
* Viewpoints.
* “Should Human Cloning Be Permitted?” Patricia Baird, M.D.
* “Yes, Human Cloning Should Be Permitted,” Chris MacDonald.
Research Issue.
“The Genetic Bill of Rights.”
* 6. Making the Grade: Education Today.
* “Turning Schools into Profit Centers,” Peter Sacks.
* “Letter to a Test Scorer,” Stephen Kramer.
* “Forget Fads–The Old Way Works Best,” Evan Keliher.
* “A Real Education,” Christina Asquith.
“ `L’ is for Lawsuit,” Janelle Brown.
“Learning While Black,” Jodie Morse.
“When Brevity Rules the Syllabus, `Ulysses’ is Lost,” James Shapiro.
* Viewpoints.
* “Bilingualism in America: English Should Be the Only Language,” S. I. Hayakawa.
* “Let's Not Say Adios to Bilingual Education,” Lourdes Rovira.
Research Issue.
“Interview with Linda Darling Hammond.”
* 7. Gender Perceptions: Has Anything Changed?
* “My Most Attractive Adversary,” Madeleine Begun Kane.
“Male Bashing on TV,” Michael Abernethy.
“The Men We Carry in Our Minds,” Scott Russell Sanders.
* “Girls: We Really Are Our Own Worst Enemies,” Lyz Baranowski.
“The New Sexual Stone Age,” Andre Mayer.
“Three Cheers for Patriarchy!,” Christine Rosen.
* Viewpoints.
* “Revisionist Feminism,” Susan Faludi and Karen Lehrman, Slate MSN.
Research Issue.
* “An Identity Reduced to a Burka,” Laila Al-Marayati and Semeen Issa.
8. Sports Culture: Notjust a game.
“Unpaid Professionals,” Andrew Zimbalist.
“A Whole New Ball Game?” Skip Rozin, with Susan Zegel.
“Sports Centered,” Jay Weiner.
“Where are the Heroes?” Ed Siegel.
Point/Counterpoint: Title IX: Battle of the Sexes Continues,” Mary Ann Cooper.
“Narrowing the Gender Gap,” Carl Bailik.
* Viewpoints.
“Just Say No to Random Drug Testing” David Rocah.
“Naïve Court Did Not Go Far Enough With Drug Testing,” Claude Lewis.
Research Issue.
“Lighten Up, Parents!” Michael L. Sachs.
* 9. Stereotyping and Profiling: Looking Beyond Race.
“The Nature of the Problem of Racial Profiling,” Deborah Ramirez, Jack McDevitt, Amy Farrell.
* “Racial Profiling Goes Beyond Black and White,” Shasha Polakow-Suransky.
* “Three Days in a New York City Jail,” Byronn Bain.
* “Hailing While Black,” Shelby Steele.
* “Are you a Terrorist, or do you Play one on TV?” Laura Fokkena.
* Viewpoints.
* “You Can't Judge a Crook by His Color,” Randall Kennedy.
* “In Defense of Racial Profiling,” John Derbyshire.
Research Issue.
“Rag Time, My Time,” Alton Fitzgerald White.
* 10. The American Experience: One Nation, Many Faces.
* “The Return of the Melting Pot,” Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
* “Forging a New Version of America's Melting Pot,” Gregory Rodriguez.
* “A New Generation Is Leading the Way,” Donna Jackson Nakazawa.
* “People Like Us,” David Brooks.
* “When Fair Is Foul,” Suzanne Fields.
“Please Ask Me `Who,’ Not `What’ I Am,” Jordan Lite.
“Ending Poem,” Aurora Levins Morales.
* Viewpoints.
* “How to Be a Patriot,” Sam Smith.
“What is Patriotism?” Charley Reese.
Research Issue.
“How to Turn More Immigrants into Americans,” Tamar Jacoby.
