Depth of Shallow Culture: The High Art of

Come take a closer look at ordinary footwear, like sneakers, or children's toys and Saturday cartoon TV shows, or make a comparison between Don Quixote and Rambo. Although some regard popular culture as 'œshallow,' this book reveals that it is more often complex, deep, and meaningful-and subject to the style changes we associate with high art. Bergesen shows how complex philosophical ideas of reincarnation are embedded in Transformer toys; how sneakers have gone through a life cycle of style types; why the decline of empires like Spain and the United States led to fictional characters like Don Quixote and Rambo; and why monsters from Japan look different than those from the United States.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Depth of Shallow Culture
The Baroque Sneaker: How the History of the Tennis Shoe Recapitulates Giorgio Vasari's Life Cycle of Art Styles
Rambo and Don Quixote: Cultural Icons of National Decline
A Sociology of Monsters: Making Mythical Creatures in the United States and Japan
A Sociology of Toys: How Transformers and Spiderman Embody the Philosophies of East and West
Bringing the Art Object Back In: Toward a New Realism in the Sociology of Culture
References
Index
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

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Depth of Shallow Culture: The High Art of Shoes, Movies, Novels, Monsters, and Toys

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