Public Culture

Edited by Marguerite S. Shaffer

From medicine shows to the Internet, from the Los Angeles Plaza to the Las Vegas Strip, from the commemoration of the Oklahoma City bombing to television programming after 9/11, scholars examine issues of democracy, diversity, identity, community, citizenship, and belonging through the lens of American popular culture.

Preface: Why Public Culture?—Marguerite S. ShafferWhat Is Public Culture? Agency and Contested Meaning in American Culture—An Introduction—Mary Kupiec CaytonPART I. PUBLIC ACTIONChapter 1. Looking for the Public in Time and Space: The Case of the Los Angeles Plaza from the Eighteenth Century to the Present—Mary P. RyanChapter 2. Remembrance, Contestation, Excavation: The Work of Memory in Oklahoma City, the Washita Battlefield, and the Tulsa Race Riot—Edward T. LinenthalChapter 3. Public Sentiments and the American Remembrance of World War II—John BodnarPART II. PUBLIC IMAGEChapter 4. Sponsorship and Snake Oil: Medicine Shows and Contemporary Public Culture—Susan StrasserChapter 5. Entertainment Wars: Television Culture after 9/11—Lynn SpigelChapter 6. Screening Pornography—Wendy Hui Kyong ChunPART III. PUBLIC SPACEChapter 7. The Billboard War: Gender, Commerce, and Public Space—Catherine GudisChapter 8. The Social Space of Shopping: Mobilizing Dreams for Public Culture—Sharon ZukinChapter 9. Gates, Barriers, and the Rise of Affinity: Parsing Public-Private Space in Postindustrial America—Hal RothmanPART IV. PUBLIC IDENTITYChapter 10. To Serve the Living: The Public and Civic Identity of African American Funeral Directors—Suzanne SmithChapter 11. Denizenship as Transnational Practice—Rachel Ida BuffChapter 12. The Queen's Mirrors: Public Identity and the Process of Transformation in Cincinnati, Ohio—Mary E. FredericksonEpilogue: Pitfalls and Promises: Wither the "Public" in America?—Sheila L. CroucherNotesList of ContributorsIndexAcknowledgments