Cars and Culture

Cars and Culture PDF Author: Rudi Volti
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801883996
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
A succinct yet comprehensive history, Cars and Culture highlights the technical changes that altered the appearance and performance of automobiles, along with the myriad forces that have shaped the car's development.

Fast Cars, Clean Bodies

Fast Cars, Clean Bodies PDF Author: Kristin Ross
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262680912
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 286

Book Description
Fast Cars, Clean Bodies examines the crucial decade from Dien Bien Phu to the mid-1960s when France shifted rapidly from an agrarian, insular, and empire-oriented society to a decolonized, Americanized, and fully industrial one. In this analysis of a startling cultural transformation Kristin Ross finds the contradictions of the period embedded in its various commodities and cultural artifacts—automobiles, washing machines, women's magazines, film, popular fiction, even structuralism—as well as in the practices that shape, determine, and delimit their uses. In each of the book's four chapters, a central object of mythical image is refracted across a range of discursive and material spaces: social and private, textual and cinematic, national and international. The automobile, the new cult of cleanliness in the capital and the colonies, the waning of Sartre and de Beauvoir as the couple of national attention, and the emergence of reshaped, functionalist masculinities (revolutionary, corporate, and structural) become the key elements in this prehistory of postmodernism in France. Modernization ideology, Ross argues, offered the promise of limitless, even timeless, development. By situating the rise of "end of history" ideologies within the context of France's transition into mass culture and consumption, Ross returns the touted timelessness of modernization to history. She shows how the realist fiction and film of the period, as well as the work of social theorists such as Barthes, Lefebvre, and Morin who began at the time to conceptualize "everyday life," laid bare the disruptions and the social costs of events. And she argues that the logic of the racism prevalent in France today, focused on the figure of the immigrant worker, is itself the outcome of the French state's embrace of capitalist modernization ideology in the 1950s and 1960s.

Autopia

Autopia PDF Author: Peter Wollen
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9781861891327
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 412

Book Description
The reach of the car today is almost universal, and its effect on landscapes, cityscapes, cultures indeed, on the very fabric of the modern world is profound. Cars have brought benefits to individuals in terms of mobility and expanded horizons, but the cost has been very high in terms of damage to the environment and the consumption of precious resources. Despite the growing belief that a Faustian price is now being paid for the freedom cars have bestowed on us, we are none the less manufacturing them in ever greater numbers. Autopia is the first book to explore the culture of the motor car in the widest possible sense. Featuring newly commissioned essays by writers, critics, historians, artists and film-makers, as well as reprinting key texts, it examines the effect of the car throughout the world, including the USA, Western and Eastern Europe, Japan, China, Cuba, India and South Africa. In this book the car is treated neither as a technological fetish object nor as an instrument of danger. Instead, it is examined as a hugely important determinant of 20th-century culture, neither wholly good nor an unmitigated disaster, and certainly endlessly fascinating. Contributors include Michael Bracewell, Ziauddin Sardar, Al Rees, Martin Pawley, Donald Richie and Peter Hamilton. Key texts by Marshall Berman, Jane Jacobs, Roland Barthes, Marc Auge and others."

Car Cultures

Car Cultures PDF Author: Daniel Miller
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 268

Book Description
Anyone who assumes that a car is simply a means to get from point A to point B, or who even thinks that they know what a car is, should read this book. Profoundly shaped by culture, the car gives rise to a wide range of emotions, from guilt about the environment in the UK to aboriginal concerns with car corpses, to struggles to keep the creatures alive with everything but the proper spare parts in West Africa. Cars and their landscapes prove central to human life from its most intimate to the widest sense of global crisis, and are capable of inspiring epic passions. From road rage in Western Europe to the struggles of cab driving in Africa to the emergence of Black identity in the US, this book examines the essential humanity of the car, which includes the jealousies, gender differences, fears and moralities that cars give rise to. Firmly grounded in detailed ethnographic and historical scholarship, this is the first book to provide an informed sense of cars as one of the most familiar and significant forms of material culture.

Kristin Bedford: Cruise Night

Kristin Bedford: Cruise Night PDF Author:
Publisher: Damiani Limited
ISBN: 9788862087278
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 144

Book Description
Scenes from the Mexican American lowrider life: a clothbound photobook documenting a vibrant LA car culture Known for her quiet portraits of American cultural movements, Los Angeles-based photographer Kristin Bedford's new work, Cruise Night, is an intimate and unstaged exploration of Los Angeles' Mexican American lowrider car culture. From 2014 to 2019 Bedford attended hundreds of lowrider cruise nights, car shows, quinceañeras, weddings and funerals. Her images offer a new visual narrative around the lowrider tradition and invite outsiders to question prevalent societal stereotypes surrounding this urban Mexican American culture. Bedford's photos explore the nuances of cars as mobile canvases and the legendary community that creates them. With bright color photography and a unique female vantage point, Cruise Nightis an original look at a prolific American movement set against the Los Angeles cityscape.

The Impossible Collection of Cars

The Impossible Collection of Cars PDF Author: Dan Neil
Publisher: Assouline Publishing
ISBN: 1614280150
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 6

Book Description
It is the dream of many to own the world’s most beautifully designed automobiles, but most often only a handful of collectors ever come close. Now, The Impossible Collection of Cars makes that dream come true, showcasing the one hundred most exceptional cars of the twentieth century in ASSOULINE's third volume in the Impossible Collection series. Each luxury automobile—from the 1909 Blitzen Benz to a 1996 McLaren F1—was chosen for its revolutionary engineering, magnificent lines, and head-turning capabilities. Assouline is pleased to announce this exquisite tome, which features cars owned by celebrities like Marlene Dietrich, Ralph Lauren, Greta Garbo, Pablo Picasso, and Elvis Presley. This Impossible Collection volume is presented on cotton paper in a beautiful black rubber clamshell box with a cutout metal plate.

The Impossible Collection of Motorcycles

The Impossible Collection of Motorcycles PDF Author: Ian Barry
Publisher: Assouline Publishing
ISBN: 161428055X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 6

Book Description
There’s an undeniable fascination with motorcycles—their speed, design, riders, and coolness factor, are all part of the magnetism. This exquisite deluxe volume, presented on cotton paper in a beautiful black rubber clamshell box with a cutout metal plate, is the newest addition to Assouline’s Impossible Collection series is a compendium of the 100 most exceptional bikes of the twentieth century—from the rare to the renowned—each one is unique. Some of these brilliant pieces of machinery include the stunning and one-of-a-kind BMW R7, the 1948 Vincent Series Rapide that Rollie Free shattered land speed record on, in nothing but a bathing suit, the iconic 1969 Easy Rider bike that Peter Fonda made famous, and the 1973 Harley-Davidson XR750, Evel Knievel’s bike of choice. Motorcycle aficionados, aesthetes, and enthusiasts alike will treasure this collector’s item.

Race, Taste, Class and Cars

Race, Taste, Class and Cars PDF Author: Alam, Yunis
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 144735348X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Book Description
Love them or hate them, most of us have an opinion about cars. If not the cars themselves, then it’s driver competence and behaviour that can offend us. And then there’s modification: alloy wheels, custom audio systems and bespoke paint jobs. For some, changing the look, feel and sound of a car says something about themselves, but for others, such enhancements signify a lack of taste, or even criminality. In subtle and complex ways, cars transmit and modify our identities behind the wheel. As a symbol of independence and freedom, the car projects status, class, taste and, significantly, embeds racialisation. Using fascinating research from drivers, including first-person accounts, Alam unpicks the ways in which our identity is enhanced and driven.

The Illustrated History of the Rat Rod

The Illustrated History of the Rat Rod PDF Author: Steve Thaemert, Jr.
Publisher: Fox Chapel Publishing
ISBN: 1620082217
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
Defined by author and Rat Rod Magazine editor Steve Thaemert, Jr. as the “blue-collar hot rod," a the term “rat rod" refers to a custom car built with creativity, ingenuity, and individuality. Less of a classic-car replica and more of an expression of the builder's personality, “rat rodding" encompasses not just the vehicles but also the scene and the lifestyle ignited by this automotive hobby that's catching on like wildfire. By the editor and senior writer of Rat Rod Magazine, the comprehensive publication for all things rat rod, The Illustrated History of Rat Rod takes you inside the culture to explore the beginnings, evolution, and rising popularity of the hobby.INSIDE THE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF RAT ROD:•The beginnings of the rat-rod scene and early enthusiasts.•A look at the hot rods that spawned the rat-rod hobby and how the term “rat rod" was coined.•Rat Rod Magazine and its importance in defining and documenting the hobby as well as other media exposure that helped bring rat rodding into the public eye.•How rat rodding overcame opposition by detractors while gaining acceptance and supporters.•The annual Rat Rod Tour, including event results and anecdotes from attendees.•The clothes, attitudes, music, and styles that shape the rat rod culture.•A discussion of parts, building techniques, and safety practices typical of rat rodding.•A glossary of terminology unique to the rat rod hobby.

Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock 'n' Roll

Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock 'n' Roll PDF Author: George O. Carney
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780847680801
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
The only anthology of its kind, this collection brings together classic and recent essays by thirteen leading geographers exploring American popular culture. The essays examine music, food, sports, politics, architecture, clothing, and religion within the context of five themes of cultural geography: region, diffusions, ecology, integration, and landscape. A list of suggested readings follows each section. Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock-n-Roll is an excellent text for introductory courses, appealing to students through its discussion of such topics as "grunge" rock, fast food, and blue jeans.
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