Violence in American Popular Culture [2 volumes] 1440832056, 9781440832055

Table of contents :
Cover
Volume 1: American History and Violent Popular Culture
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword: American Popular Culture—There Will Be Blood
Notes
Bibliography
Introduction: Recovering American Violence
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter One: The Vanishing Trace of Violence in Native American Literature and Film
Ritualism
Minimalism
Ironism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Two: The Politics of Pain: Representing the Violence of Slavery in American Popular Culture
The Strange Career of Uncle Tom’s Cabin
The Eroticization of Interracial Violence
Reconceptualizing the Violence of Slavery in the Post–Civil Rights Era
Conclusion: Representing the Violence of Slavery in the “Post-Racial” Era
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Three: Natural Laws, Unnatural Violence, and the Psychophysical Experience of the Civil War Generation in America
Violence in Antebellum America
Simply Murder: Unfathomable Killing and the Civil War
Psychophysical Coping with a Bloody Past
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Four: World War II in American Popular Culture, 1945–Present
Early Postwar, 1945–1948
Cold War, 1948–1962
The Vietnam War Era, 1962–1978
Post Vietnam, 1978–2001
Post-9/11
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Five: American Dreams and Nightmares: Remembering the Civil Rights Movement
American Dreams
American Nightmares
A Change Is Gonna Come
Marching Forward: Fifty Years Later
Final Thoughts
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Six: Exploring Popular Cultural Narratives of Gender Violence
Domestic Violence
Rape
Sexual Harassment
Hate Crimes
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Seven: Vigilant Citizens and Horrific Heroes: Perpetuating the Positive Portrayal of Vigilantes
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Eight: The Violent Gang in American Popular Culture: From Pirates and Cowboys to Bikers and Gangstas
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Nine: Fear and Loathing in Suburbia: School Shootings
Defining School Shootings
Apportioning Blame in the Aftermath
True Crime Treatments
Fictional Responses
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Ten: Fatal Attraction: The Serial Killer in American Popular Culture
Exemplar of Modernity
Narrative M.O.
Fictional Representations
Moral Panic and Political Rhetoric
Thomas Harris and the Rise of Serial Killer Culture
The “Celebrity” Serial Killer
Reorientation and Rationalization
Disavowal and Dexter: The Heroic Serial Killer
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Eleven: Presidential Violence
Andrew Jackson: The Personal Is the Political
Theodore Roosevelt: Violence and Masculine Self-Transformation
Presidential Violence in the Age of Mass Destruction
Postmodern Presidential Violence: Zombies, Vampires, and Werewolves
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Twelve: September 11 and Beyond: The Influence of 9/11 on American Film and Television
September 11, 2001
Iraq
Missions
Homecoming
Conclusion: Violence Coming Home
Notes
Bibliography
Film and Television
Chapter Thirteen: The War on Terror in American Popular Culture
Violence and War: Constructing ‘Self’ and ‘Other’
Early Responses to 9/11 in American Popular Culture
Reproducing Gendered and Racialized Discourses Post-9/11
Expanding the Discourse: Alternative Representations of Violence
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
About the Editor and Contributors
The Editor
The Contributors
Index
Volume 2: Representations of Violence in Popular Cultural Genres
Title
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword: American Popular Culture—There Will Be Blood
Notes
Bibliography
Introduction: Recovering American Violence
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter One: Traversing the Boundaries of Moral Deviance: New England Execution Sermons, 1674–1825
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Two: Reading between the Lines: The Penny Press and the Purpose of Making Violence News
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Three: The Coy, the Graphic, and the Ugly: Violence in Dime Novels
Violence and Censorship: The Dime Novel as Contested Ideological Territory
Violence and Sensation: Shifting Reader Identification in Dime Novel Torture Scenes
Violence and Genre: Situating Dime Novels with the Conventions of Crime Fiction
Drawing-Room Mystery: Secrets, Ghosts, and Offstage Violence
The Hardboiled: Detectives, Outlaws, and a Damsel in Distress
The Police Detective and the Forced Marriage: Race, Gender, and Violence in Phebe Paullin’s Fate
Conclusions
Suggestions for Further Reading
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Four: “She Decided to Kill Her Husband”: Housewives in Contemporary American Fictions of Crime
Examining Housewife Violence
Locating Violent Housewives
Comedy Violence
“True Crime” and Confessional Discourses
Conclusion: Violent American Housewives
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Five: Hard-Boiled Detectives and the Roman Noir Tradition
The Emergence of the Hard-Boiled and Roman Noir
Dashiell Hammett
Raymond Chandler
James M. Cain
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Six: Violence, the Production Code, and Film Noir
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Seven: From Knights to Knights-Errant: The Evolution of Westerns through Portrayals of Violence
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Eight: Modus Operandi: Continuity and Change in Television Crime Drama at the Forensic Turn
Veracity, Verisimilitude, and Valor: Mid–Twentieth-Century Police Procedurals
New Channels for New, Non-Fiction Crime Stories
The Terror of Trauma: Forensic Procedurals of the New Millennium
“With Better Light Let in By Death”: Forensic Procedurals as Mourning Rituals
Over My Dead Body
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Nine: Documenting Murder before In Cold Blood: The 1950s Origins of True-Crime
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Ten: Capote’s Children: Patterns of Violence in Contemporary American True-Crime Narratives
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Eleven: “I’m Not Prepared to Die”: Murdered-Girl Tunes in Appalachia
Pearl Bryan
Omie Wise
Lula Viers
Tom Dula
Contemporary Murder Ballads
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Twelve: AmeriKKKa’s Human Sacrifice: Blackness, Gangsta Rap, and Authentic Villainy
Authentic Gangsters and Black Criminality in the American Imagination
Criminality and Gangsta Rap’s Beginnings
Police Violence and Gangsta Rap’s Golden Age
Two More Murders and the Aftermath
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Thirteen: “Violent Lives”: The Representation of Violence in American Comics
Violence in American Comics
Superhero Comics and Violence
Violence and the Road to Grim’n’Gritty
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Chapter Fourteen: “Command and Conquer”: Video Games and Violence
A Short History of Video Game “Violence” Discourse
Video Game “Effects”: Violent Video Games = Violent Behaviors
Critiques of Violent Video Game Playing = Violent Behavior
Putting Violence in Context
God of War Series
Guild Wars Series
Violence Doesn’t Always Sell: The Rise of Indie and Mobile Gaming
Concluding Thoughts: Gamergate as Real-World Violence
Notes
Bibliography
About the Editor and Contributors
The Editor
The Contributors
Index