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Instead of approaching cultural theory as a set of pronouncements to be learned, this book considers why lecturers, students and cultural producers and consumers outside the University system might all want to theorize what culture is and how it works. Taking its cue from J L Austin's infamous How to Do Things With Words, which argued that language doesn't just reflect the world but is used to achieve things in the world, this book approaches cultural theory as something to be used, performed, adapted, transformed and created in new contexts by its own consumer-producers. How To Do Things With Cultural Theory considers how key theories have been constructed and written, treating theory as a text to be analyzed. What narratives recur across different cultural theories? And what does it mean to construct one's cultural identity as a "theorist"? Addressing the cultural and subcultural identities that "theory" generates and sustains, this book asks what desires, fantasies, ideals and politics drive people to become "cultural theorists." As well as analyzing the production and circulation of theory, this book also tackles the thorny question of how best to read theory. Despite being what lecturers and students spend much of their time doing, the act of reading theory has typically been taken for granted or rendered invisible within cultural theory itself. ... Read more

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The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Bridging the disciplines of social history, cultural anthropology, and economics, the volume marks a major step in our understanding of the cultural basis of economic life and the sociology of culture. ... Read more

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Interesting
This collection of essays is insightful but far from comprehensive, a good starting point for further discussion on commodification. ... Read more

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This book shows the reader how much archaeologists can learn from recent developments in cultural history. Cultural historians deal with many of the same issues as postprocessual archaeologists, but have developed much more sophisticated methods for thinking about change through time and the textuality of all forms of evidence. The author uses the particular case of Iron Age Greece (c. 1100-300 BC), to argue that text-aided archaeology, far from being merely a testing ground for prehistorians' models, is in fact in the best position to develop sophisticated models of the interpretation of material culture.

The book begins by examining the history of the institutions within which archaeologists of Greece work, of the beliefs which guide them, and of their expectations about audiences. The second part of the book traces the history of equality in Iron Age Greece and its relationship to democracy, focusing on changing ideas about class, gender, ethnicity, and cosmology, as they were worked out through concerns with relationships to the past and the Near East. Ian Morris provides a new interpretation of the controversial site of Lefkandi, linking it to Greek mythology, and traces the emergence of radically new ideas of the free male citizen which made the Greek form of democracy a possibility. ... Read more

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From Saussure and Levi-Strauss to Foucault, Bourdieu and Derrida, current criticism of modern politics and culture owe an important, if unacknowledged, debt to Emile Durkheim. These engaging and innovative essays by Charles Lemert bring together his writings on the contributions of French social theory past and present. Rather than merely interpret the theories, Lemert uses them to explore the futures of sociology, social theory, and culture studies. He offers the reader original insights into Durkheim's legacy and broader traditions of the cultural and social sciences. ... Read more

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Mae West ("Too much of a good thing can be wonderful") continues to reverberate through American popular culture. Here Curry examines the interplay between West's bawdy, worldly persona & 20th-century gender & media politics. In the 1930s, she was a lightning rod for debates over morality & censorship. In the 1970s, the complexity of her portrayal of gender made her a controversial figure for both the gay rights & feminist movements. This book analyzes the symbolic roles that West has occupied, arguing that West represents a carefully orchestrated transgression of race, class, & gender expectation. Also illustrates how icons of pop culture often distill contested social issues, serving diverse & even contradictory political functions. ... Read more

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A Feminist Take On Mae West
Ramona Curry's "Too Much of a Good Thing: Mae West as Cultural Icon," published in 1996, is a university press publication that examines Mae West's contributions to the Feminist Movement and evaluates her role as a female icon of the twentieth century. This treatment of West is a typical academic text with good research of textual sources, but with little or no interviews and featuring theory that is hit or miss.
When Mae West was asked why she never wrote an article supporting the Feminist Movement she reportably drawled, "They never asked me."

Pretentious silly book on a legend
This is a fairly ridiculous, heavy handed attempt at analyzing the appeal of one of the greatest movie stars ever.This writer sees everything about Mae as "camp" (wait til you read her detailed analysis of La West's appearance on MISTER ED!!) and although she seems pro-West, apparently sees her mainly as someone who gays to copy and idolize, not as a serious pop culture icon for the mainstream public.Super silly and very heavy handed.Beulah, peel me a raspberry!!! ... Read more

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Why did affirmative action programs implemented during the sixties and seventies suffer vicious assaults in the nineties?How were culturally resonant appeals to individualism and colorblindness turned around during the nineties to epitomize a “toxic system of quotas, preference, and set-asides”?In The Racial Order of Things, Roopali Mukherjee analyzes reversals and reinterpretations that mark the turn from the civil rights era of the sixties to the post-soul decade of the nineties. She begins by surveying a series of intractable disagreements over race- and gender-based social justice that have played out over the past decade, framed by the 1996 passage of California’s Proposition 209 and the 2003 Supreme Court decision on admissions criteria at the University of Michigan. Examining political campaigns for and against affirmative action as well as films about dilemmas of gender and race in the mythic meritocracy, the book exposes a remarkable discursive tug-of-war over antidiscrimination policies during the nineties.Highlighting the ways in which categories such as “blackness” and “women” have operated in these debates, Mukherjee sees the public policy process as a key site where cultural identities are formed, recognized, and discarded. Considering mainstream media, including Hollywood films like Disclosure, G.I. Jane, Courage under Fire, and The Contender, Mukherjee focuses on conflicts following the introduction of women and blacks into the workplace. She explores the politics of public memory about the civil rights era through the lens of feature film, documentary, and network news. Using newspaper articles and legislative records, Mukherjee provides a comparative reading of narratives and counternarratives of the debate surrounding the 1964 Civil Rights Act and anti–affirmative action campaigns of the neoliberal nineties.Balancing policy narrative, cinematic reading, and conceptual analysis, Mukherjee demonstrates a shifting and paradoxical racial order that explains how the cultural authority and political career of affirmative action remains in flux, thoroughly contested, and contradictory.Roopali Mukherjee is assistant professor of media studies at Queens College of the City University of New York. ... Read more

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This is a perceptive study of the relationship between technology and culture. Orvell discusses Whitman and his world, then considers material culture, photography, and literature. Among the cultural figures discussed are writers Henry James, John Dos Passos, and James Agee; photographers Alfred Stieglitz and Margaret Bourke-White; and architect-designers Gustav Stickley and Frank Lloyd Wright. A witty essay on the significance of junk in the 1930s concludes the book. ... Read more

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Well Researched, Little Connection
This is not a casual reading book. In order to enjoy this book you have to be interested in Imitation and Authenticity before you crack the cover, because Mile Orvell does not attempt to make the topic friendly. He is well researched, but his writing style is dry, and it feels as if Orvell is trying to show how intelligent he is, rather than adding more to this promising topic.

Superb study of American culture emerging into modernity
Orvell's THE REAL THING is the sort of book I wish I'd written.It is entertaining, wide-ranging across many cultural genres, and offers a coherent and stimulating account of American culture in the late 29th andearly 20th centuries.It is especially acute on such complex anddifficult-to-classify cultural phenomena as the rise of department storesand mass-produced consumer goods, the "aestheticizing"photographs of the machine-age city (and even of machine parts themselves)by such artists as Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand.An outstanding studyI return to again and again. ... Read more

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Among Soviet-Jewish immigrants to the United States in the 1970s, more than 10,000 came from the Black Sea port and resort of Odessa. In this book, Dr. Friedberg has drawn upon many hours of conversation with more than a hundred of these immigrants to convey the flavour of the Soviet city's cultural life in the middle decades of the 20th century. The study was conducted under the auspices of the Soviet Interview Project headquartered at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign. ... Read more

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A highly original interpretation of the history of Western culture that presents a first in-depth analysis of the cultural impact of communication. Explains how the media have helped bring about economic, political, social, and intellectual progress. ... Read more

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What does material culture do for the mind? How is human thought built into and executed through things? It is now been widely recognised that in ways that we have yet to fully understand, material culture shapes the manner in which people act, perceive and think. The understanding of the cognitive efficacy of past and present material culture becomes one of the most challenging research topics not simply for the archaeology and anthropology of human cognition but for the general field of the cognitive and social sciences. This volume, through a series of innovative theoretical papers and empirical case studies ranging from prehistory to the present, attempts to develop such a cross-disciplinary understanding and to offer some future directions of research. The main objective is to readdress the balance of the cognitive equation as presently conceived by bringing materiality into the cognitive fold. But how do we integrate material culture into existing theories of human cognition? How do we best approach the diachronic influence and evocative potential of things in the development of human intelligence? Contributors argue, from different disciplinary perspectives, for the need to expand the boundaries of mind beyond the individual in order to accommodate broader cognitive phenomena that include interactions among people, artefacts, space, and time. ... Read more

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The field of material culture has been historically well established but has recently enjoyed something of a renaissance. Methods once dominated by Marxist-oriented analyses, in which objects are understood as commodities, and by the study of objects as symbols are starting to give way to a more ethnographic approach to artifacts. This orientation to practice is the cornerstone of the essays presented in Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter. The diversity of these essays is mediated by their common commitment to ethnography with a material focus. Against the established practice of examining objects as mirages of media or language, Material Cultures emphasizes how the study of objects not only contributes to an understanding of artifacts but is also an effective instrument for the study of social values and contradictions. ... Read more

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This is a must-have
This book is a must-have for any student/academic interested in applied sciences of consumption. It is essential to acquire an anthropological view of consumption and understand its cultural meaning ans roles. As usual, Amazon delivered in no time. ... Read more

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Representing a new wave of thinking about material culture studies3/4a topic long overdue for reevaluation3/4the essays in this volume take a fresh look at the relationship between material culture and exchange theory and illuminate the changing patterns of cultural flow in an increasingly global economy and the cultural differences registered in "regimes of value." The Empire of Things includes an extensive interview with the late Annette B. Weiner, whose work on exchange theory still inspires contemporary material culture studies.

The contributors deconstruct the traditional opposition between "gift" and "commodity" and between supposedly "alienable" and "inalienable" objects in ceremonies of exchange3/4whether on the island of Sumba or among middle-class shoppers in North London. They show how objects can become symbols of national identity, in cases ranging from artworks in Australia to lost body parts of past Mexican presidents. They reveal how the movement of objects through different contexts, across borders, or through art exhibitions exposes contradictions and shifting meanings for different constituencies. ... Read more

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New York Times veteran Lena Williams candidly explores the everyday occurrences that strain racial relations, reaching a conclusion that "no one could disagree with" (The New York Times Book Review)

Although we no longer live in a legally segregated society, the division between blacks and whites never seems to go away. We work together, go to school together, and live near each other, but beneath it all there is a level of misunderstanding that breeds mistrust and a level of miscommunication that generates anger. Now in paperback, this is Lena Williams's honest look at the interactions between blacks and whites-the gestures, expressions, tones, and body language that keep us divided.

Frank, funny, and smart, It's the Little Things steps back from academia and takes a candid approach to race relations. Based on her own experiences as well as what she has learned from focus groups across the United States, Lena Williams does for race what Deborah Tannen did for gender. Finally, we have a book that traverses the color lines to help us understand, and eliminate, the alarmingly common interactions that get under the skin of both blacks and whites.

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Customer Reviews (61)

Potato, Potahto, Tomato, Tomahto, Let's Call The Whole Thing Off
Speaking as a 50-year-old, Caucasian father of two, adopted, tween, African-American boys, the book was helpful in highlighting some of the irksome scenarios which arise between the races. Some of her personal stories, such as when an angry, black, woman reporter placed her hands on her hips, were funny and informative. Because of our country's cultural baggage of "that peculiar institution" known as slavery, whites are always walking on eggshells when it comes to race and blacks see practically everything through the patina of potential racism. Ms. Williams book is an easy, breezy attempt to address some of the misconceptions. The book is devoid of charts and statistics. It isn't meant to be some heavy introspective tomb and feels more like a quasi-memoir. Ms. Williams' book was a nice change from many of the more academic works which I've read in the past. Yes, it leans heavier towards African-American complaints with Caucasian faux pas than the other way around, but in my case, I found it useful for addressing some of the issues which may arise for my family.

Are You Looking For Balance?
My comment on the reviews of the book
By Lena Williams (Author)
(Please note... I am not Lena Williams the Author)

"It's the Little Things: Everyday Interactions That Anger, Annoy, and Divide the Races":

I noticed that the following statement is the perception many people used to describe this book, or express their dissatisfaction with it.

"There is much more about the African-American point of view than the Caucasian point of view."

My name is Lena Williams (I am not the author of the book) although I am a writer.
I am giving this book 5 stars if there were 6 stars I would give it even more.It took courage and honesty for Ms Williams and others to bring these issues in her book to the table with true transparency. I have found that it is sometimes interesting to just review the Reviews.

Are you looking for balance? Out of all the unsatisfactory reviews of this book I have read so far negative and even sometimes positive ones the readers seem to be looking for mostly the same thing...BALANCE. "They are saying "where is the BALANCE?"
Isn't that what life is all about?Well...that is precisely what people of color are looking for everyday BALANCE.Isn't that what we all want out of life...just some BALANCE?
The black and white issues or what ever color they may be in Lena Williams's book aren't they little things that are part of a major issue that needs to be addressed "Racism in America?" The only way to end anything is first to confront it...the evidence of a sore is some swelling and pain!

What better way for Lena Williams to get your attention than to give you... her readers a taste of imbalance? Now ask yourself this question if you want to be healed? What does imbalance feel like? It is very uncomfortable isn't it? Now, that you have experienced it...you can recognize it. Now perhaps together we can all enter into the process of finding ways to eliminate not only the imbalances of life which breeds racism, but any indifference that cause us to be offensive to others rather than just different from others.Could this BOOK be a very effective way to get our attention?I THINK SO."We the people" are the solution not the book.

Perhaps Lena Williams was born just to write this book that only some people find offensive...yet it has reached them because it has touched a nerve or brought to light things that they were just honestly unaware of.
Racism is like carbon monoxide poison...it is very subtle, has a low radar and often comes packaged with deception. It can be a very frustrating topic for those who don't practice it. Racism is ungodly because it has no BALANCE that's why it is evil and wicked in the eyes of GOD Almighty. The Scriptures says "An improper BALANCE is an abomination to the LORD" Proverbs

Just being TRULY KIND to one another (not nice... but kind) is a good place to start?I think we can be it and do it. This book allows us to focus together on things we need to end and to find some humor in the things that are just plain silly.
What do you think? Lena had the courage to reveal these issues and they are real.Maybe someone else will take the challenge to bring more balance.
Come ...remember this:
"No matter which side you approach the TRUTH from it always equals the same."

Please.
This woman had a chance to make me understand the things I might do to annoy or hurt black people. I was open to hearing an argument and was planning to keep it all in mind and change my ways should they be hurtful to someone.
This woman got my attention and this is what she used her platform to tell me: White people smell, especially their wet hair. Black people think that white people train their dogs to not like blacks,and only attend parties to suck up to someone higher on the social ladder. White people call blacks by ther first names to degrade them. Lady, whites are called by their first names too. It happens to me every day and I am as white as they come. Society is just losing their manners as a whole- it is happening to everyone.
She stated as fact that white people will use any chance they get to prove their superiority over blacks (really? I hadnt even thought of something so foolish- I am not thinking about blacks 24/7 and how I can show them up!)
She said there is a perception that black people are not as smart as whites (I have truly never heard that) and that black people get funky looks from whites when they eat lunch or gather or work at a nice place.. Lady, so do the rest of us. We all get funky looks. How do you know what they are thinking of you? If they are thinking anything at all about you, it is: Black people hate us. I hope this person doesnt hate me too.)

I learned that white people ask black people "who do you know?" at white parties, because there is no way they could be prestigious enough to be a true guest. Wrong, lady. White people ask each other that as well.

This is a book of this one woman's hurt and annoyances at white people (forgive the sp's, I am typing fast) and that is fine, she should be allowed to vent. But as someone else pointed out this book is billed as things the races, not one race, do to hurt each other, not "things whites are surely thinking in their heads, although I have no proof."

She lent one chapter to white's questions on blacks. One question was why do black people lighten their skin and eyes and straighten their hair? She didnt provide any research on that. She simply commented that it didnt mean they were trying to look white. I need to hear more of a psychological background on that, because I am not buying it.

Most of the comments in this book were provided by this woman's friends and family- her niece, nephew, brothers, a few colleagues. She mentions a few focus groups, but for the most part, these are the gripes of her and her friends/family. It was not well researched. I am giving it two stars, because it opened my eyes that black people will pretty much hate me, no matter what I do. Look black people. We dont think less of you. We know you are angry, we can feel it. We might be scared of you sometimes, because we think you hate us, but we do *not* hate you. I do not share the same outlook as my ancestors, as you surely dont share the outlook of OJ Simpson. We desparately want you to know that we really dont sit around thinking of ways to one up you, like this woman says. Trust me, we've got our own problems in our own lives. It is all how you look at it. I could sit there and assume every person who lays eyes on me is looking at me because I am ugly. Or I could change my way of thinking and think they are really looking at me because they think I am pretty.

All I have learned from this woman was that black people are still very, very angry at whites and there is nothing I can really do to fix it. If I even *look* at you, I am giving you a funky look because youre black. If I dont look at you, I am ignoring you because you are black. There is truly nothing I can do. Thanks Mrs Williams, for letting me know there is no hope. I will turn my attentions to something else.

Has grown on me slowly
Firstly, this is a well-written book.It reads easily without feeling as if it was written at a 4th-grade reading level.The first few chapters grabbed me, but gradually I found myself angry at what appeared to be an outright bashing of whites -- and there were certainly those moments. But, although the book wasn't as balanced as it should have been, nor dispersed its criticism fairly (instead of saving the white replies for one chapter in the back), the book does have its merits.

I read this book to get the black perspective and that's what I got.It may not always be fair or right, but it's there, and my eyes were opened.
It doesn't always matter whether someone is correct in their beliefs.Sometimes it just matters to know what those beliefs are.

Now, I would love to see a book that fills the void that this one left.If Lena Williams can voice her gripes towards some of her white peeves, then let's have one that evens the playing field by truly discussing the black counterparts instead of brushing by them aside in one token chapter. (These would be equivalent points in the manner of Ms. Williams: Black people talking and answering cell phones in the movies, walking in the street in front of cars like they own the concrete, mumbling derisive comments under breath when passed on the street, etc.)

In the meantime, I will continue to live out the lessons I've learned here. Instead of avoiding eye contact with people, I make a point now to gaze a split second longer to catch their glimpse and give a friendly nod. I go to the one black furniture salesman instead of the sea of white ones. I take a few extra seconds at the cash register to say something friendly in order to do what little I can to bridge the gap that someone else might have wedged in place.It's the little things that divide and the little things that can mend.

On the other hand...
I was sort of shocked to read all the negative reviews of this book.I read it recently and really liked it.

No, her defense of white people is not especially strident or lengthy.Why would it be?As a white woman reading the book, the information about african-american culture was the more interesting to me anyway.I already know that lots of white people don't like, for example, that if someone accuses you of racism and is proved wrong you never get an apology.I didn't know anything about white women's hair being an issue.

The information mostly is anecdotal, but conversations seem to be the best way to get it.I can't imagine that any sort of survey would get honest answers.

Anyhow, I learned a lot.I'm tempted to write her a note and say that I would be happy to participate in a focus group for a followup book.

... Read more

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A Read For Understanding How Museums Function
I have found only a few scholarly materials such as Bill Brown's book "Things" address the topic to what truly shapes the museum experience.Brown brings forth in his argument that at the core of the museum experience lies the powerful and evolving relationship between an object and the visitor--an experience that is indeed independent of the museum historiography.As simple and self-evident that it may appear, many scholars have only made reference to the uniqueness of aspace that is restricted solely between an object that is displayed in an exhibition and the visitor who volunteers a self-sense investment.However, few scholars like Brown actually present their argument in a head-on theory about the power of objects that affect personal involvements and in turn, affect the museums' cultural authority.For that reason alone, this is a must read for anyone who works with museums as to help understand and configure truly where the power of the museum setting experience lies--a human investment regardless of how museum have changed over time. ... Read more

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" America stocks its shelves with mass-produced goods but fills its imagination with handmade folk objects. In Pennsylvania, the ""back to the city"" housing movement causes a conflict of cultures. In Indiana, an old tradition of butchering turtles for church picnics evokes both pride and loathing among residents. In New York, folk-art exhibits raise choruses of adoration and protest. These are a few of the examples Simon Bronner uses to illustrate the ways Americans physically and mentally grasp things. Bronner moves beyond the usual discussions of form and variety in America's folk material culture to explain historical influences on, and the social consequences of, channeling folk culture into a mass society.

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Drawing upon the work of some of the most influential theorists in the field, Thinking Through Things demonstrates the quiet revolution growing in anthropology and its related disciplines, shifting its philosophical foundations. The first text to offer a direct and provocative challenge to disciplinary fragmentation - arguing for the futility of segregating the study of artefacts and society - this collection expands on the concerns about the place of objects and materiality in analytical strategies, and the obligation of ethnographers to question their assumptions and approaches.

The team of leading contributors put forward a positive programme for future research in this highly original and invaluable guide to recent developments in mainstream anthropological theory.