Understanding American Icons: An Introduction to Semiotics

ISBN-13: 9781611320398 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 184 str.

Arthur Asa Berger

Opis

This brief, student-friendly introduction to the study of semiotics uses lively examples from 28 iconic locations in the United States, such as Coney Island, Las Vegas, the World Trade Center, and the Grand Canyon.

Spis treści

Chapter 1 Icons and Semiotics: An Introduction; Chapter 2 Perspectives on American Society and Culture; Chapter 3 Disneyland; Chapter 4 The Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles; Chapter 5 The St. Louis Gateway Arch; Chapter 6 Fenway Park; Chapter 7 The Mall of America; Chapter 8 The Grand Canyon; Chapter 9 The Golden Gate Bridge; Chapter 10 The Las Vegas Strip; Chapter 11 Waikiki Beach; Chapter 12 The Space Needle; Chapter 13 The Statue of Liberty; Chapter 14 Coney Island; Chapter 15 Alcatraz Prison; Chapter 16 The Cowboys Stadium in Dallas; Chapter 17 Mount Rushmore; Chapter 18 Gold Rush Country, Columbia, California; Chapter 19 Madison Avenue; Chapter 20 The Alamo; Chapter 21 Graceland; Chapter 22 The Hoover Dam; Chapter 23 Grauman’s Chinese Theater; Chapter 24 The French Quarter; Chapter 25 Santa Fe, New Mexico; Chapter 26 The San Francisco Chinatown; Chapter 27 The World Trade Center;

O autorze

Arthur Asa Berger is professor emeritus of Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts at San Francisco State University, where he taught between 1965 and 2003. He graduated in 1954 from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts; he majored in Literature and minored in Philosophy and Art. He received a Master’s Degree in Journalism (but also studied at the Writers Workshop) from the University of Iowa in 1956 and was elected to the University of Iowa School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s “Hall of Fame” in 2009. He received a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota in 1965. He wrote his dissertation on the comic strip Li’l Abner.In 1963 he had a Fulbright scholarship to Italy, and in 1983–84 was visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. He has also taught at Heinrich Heine University in Dusseldorf, Germany, at Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Hong Kong, and in China at Jinan University in Guangzhou and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Over the years he has lectured in more than a dozen countries such as England, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, Russia and Ukraine.He has published more than one hundred articles in publications such as The Journal of Communication, Society, Rolling Stone, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Los Angeles Times, and more than sixty books on media, popular culture, humor, and tourism. Among his books are: Signs in Contemporary Culture: An Introduction to Semiotics; Seeing is Believing: An Introduction to Visual Communication; What Objects Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture; Media and Society; Media and Communication Research Methods; Making Sense of Media; Bloom’s Morning; Ads, Fads and Consumer Culture; and Shop ‘Til You Drop. His work has focused on the impact of media and popular culture on individuals and on American co