American rituals are vital to the creation and renewal of cultural meanings and rules for social interaction. These rituals are rooted in tradition yet are rapidly changing: a contradiction of hyper-modern society. This phenomenon was first explored by Professor Deegan in her 1989 study American Ritual Dramas. The theory examines both participatory rituals and mass-media rituals to show how everyday people become attached to and alienated from other rituals. Elaborating on the critical dramaturgy theory, the essays in this collection show how patterns can be changed to create a more emancipatory and celebratory society. The topics covered in the collection include an analysis of Santa Claus, skinheads, hate crimes, and strip dancing, among other topics. Each contributor has participated in these rituals and many examine related cultural artifacts such as music, brochures, and so forth. As the essays show, postmodern theory has gratly underestimated the power and coherence of these events. An important study for scholars and other researchers involved with sociological theory, social psychology, and popular culture.

American rituals are vital to the creation and renewal of cultural meanings and rules for social interaction. These rituals are rooted in tradition yet are rapidly changing: a contradiction of hyper-modern society. This phenomenon was first explored by Professor Deegan in her 1989 study American Ritual Dramas. The theory examines both participatory rituals and mass-media rituals to show how everyday people become attached to and alienated from other rituals. Elaborating on the critical dramaturgy theory, the essays in this collection show how patterns can be changed to create a more emancipatory and celebratory society. The topics covered in the collection include an analysis of Santa Claus, skinheads, hate crimes, and strip dancing, among other topics. Each contributor has participated in these rituals and many examine related cultural artifacts such as music, brochures, and so forth. As the essays show, postmodern theory has gratly underestimated the power and coherence of these events. An important study for scholars and other researchers involved with sociological theory, social psychology, and popular culture.

Deegan attempts a most unlikely synthesis of the cynical theories of Erving Goffman and the community-affirming views of Victor Turner. Moreover, in testing the result in the context of modern American rituals, Deegan adds a good measure of Marxist-oriented feminism to provide strong structural connections and depth to the analysis. The end result of this difficult and rough-edged synthesis is not without flaws, but it represents a highly creative, provocative, promising, and critical approach to modern American culture. . . . All of this makes for fascinating reading and is quite certain to hold the attention of professional sociologists and their students at all levels. Choice In a landmark contribution to the sociological literature, Mary Jo Deegan examines the underlying social patterns that generate American rituals. The first book to employ dramaturgical theory to analyze popular rituals such as football games and the singles bar scene, American Ritual Dramas draws upon the pioneering work of Erving Goffman, Victor Turner, and T. R. Young to construct a critical framework for examining the social structure of everyday life and its relation to times of celebration or fun. The result is a new and important clarification of two aspects of ritual life in America: the long-term patterns unique to our worldview and material life, and the rapid innovation of new rituals that impel modern life. In developing her arguments, Deegan looks at two major types of ritual: participatory rituals and media--constructed rituals. Through the use of the dramatic metaphor, she looks at the roles we play, the language we use, and the rules we follow in diverse ritual settings ranging from household auctions to the Star Trek television series and the written adventures of The Wizard of Oz. Extending the work of earlier theorists, Deegan looks for the first time in this context at the issues of sex and class and their relation to bureaucracy and modern uses of time. Her critical inquiry reveals that these familiar social rituals, and others like them, are paradoxically liberating and restricting at the same time. The solution lies, Deegan concludes, in fostering alternative ritual behavior patterns that liberate all members of the community in the democratic experience of playfulness.

How can we understand consumption in a region known for its cultural richness and vast inequalities? What do Latin Americans consume, and why? Examining topics from tango and samba to sex workers in Costa Rica, from eating tamales to selling ice in the Andes, and from building and moving houses to buying cell phones, this collection brings together original research on some of the many forms of consumption and consumers that contribute to Latin American cultures and histories. Contributors include sociologists, anthropologists, media and cultural studies scholars, geographers and historians, showcasing diverse approaches to understanding Latin American consumption practices and consumer culture.

Unfolding in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, and Mexico, and spanning the years between 1746 and 1934, American Tapestry is a ride through American history in the company of a family of local community leaders. The family exemplifies the type of 'middling' people who served on our foundational democratic institutions. Imperfect though they were, each of the family members responded to the challenges of the time-challenges that embody the universal experience of the human condition. American Tapestry explores aspects of Native American history-with a focus on the Haudenosaunee people. With elegant yet down-to-earth writing, Sherman weaves together stories of American history, family history, and Native American history.

A wedding serves as the beginning marker of a marriage; if a couple is to manage cultural differences throughout their relationship, they must first pass the hurdle of designing a wedding ceremony that accommodates those differences. In this volume, author Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz documents the weddings of 112 couples from across the United States, studied over a 10-year period. She focuses on intercultural weddings--interracial, interethnic, interfaith, international, and interclass--looking at how real people are coping with cultural differences in their lives. Through detailed case studies, the book explores how couples display different identities simultaneously. The concepts of community, ritual, identity, and meaning are given extensive consideration. Because material culture plays a particularly important role in weddings as in other examples of ritual, food, clothing, and objects are given special attention here. Focusing on how couples design a wedding ritual to simultaneously meet multiple--and different--requirements, this book provides: *extensive details of actual behavior by couples; *an innovative format: six traditional theoretical chapters, with examples integrated into the discussion, are matched to six "interludes" providing detailed descriptions of the most successful examples of resolving intercultural differences; *a methodological appendix detailing what was done and why these decisions were made; and *a theoretical appendix outlining the study's assumptions in detail. Wedding as Text: Communicating Cultural Identities Through Ritual is a distinctive study of those who have accepted cultural difference into their daily lives and how they have managed to do so successfully. As such, it is suitable for students and scholars in semiotics, intercultural communication, ritual, material culture, family communication, and family studies, and will be valuable reading for anyone facing the issue of cultural difference.