American Subcultures by Eric Rawson - First Edition, 2018 from Macmillan Student Store

American Subcultures

A Bedford Spotlight ReaderFirst Edition ©2018 Eric Rawson

American Subcultures explores questions about how marginalized communities affect our shared experience: What is life like in a marginalized group? How do subcultures define themselves? By what means does a subculture challenge authority? How do subcultures reproduce the values of mainstrea...
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American Subcultures by Eric Rawson - First Edition, 2018 from Macmillan Student Store

 A brief and versatile reader about American subcultures at an affordable price

American Subcultures explores questions about how marginalized communities affect our shared experience: What is life like in a marginalized group? How do subcultures define themselves? By what means does a subculture challenge authority? How do subcultures reproduce the values of mainstream culture? In what ways have subcultures been subsumed by the larger culture, and how have the subcultures responded? Readings by psychologists, journalists, philosophers, sociologists, activists, and others take up these issues and more. Questions and assignments for each selection provide a range of activities for students and the website for the Spotlight Series (macmillanlearning.com/spotlight) offers instructor support with sample syllabi and additional teaching resources.

The Bedford Spotlight Reader Series is an exciting line of single-theme readers, each featuring Bedford’s trademark care and quality. An Editorial Board of more than a dozen compositionists at schools focusing on specific themes assist in the development of the series. The readers in the series collect thoughtfully chosen readings sufficient for an entire writing course—about 35 selections—to allow instructors to provide carefully developed, high-quality instruction at an affordable price. Bedford Spotlight Readers are designed to help students make inquiries from multiple perspectives, opening up topics such as language diversity, music, borders, humor, monsters, happiness, money, food, sustainability, and gender to critical analysis. The readers are flexibly arranged in thematic chapters, each focusing in depth on a different facet of the central topic.

Features

Bedford care and quality in every volume. Each volume in the Bedford Spotlight series is developed with attention to design, pedagogy, and compelling readings that work in the classroom.

Affordable, and an ideal package option. Each Bedford Spotlight Reader offers plenty of material for a composition course while keeping the price low. Package any Spotlight Reader with　Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing: A Bedford Spotlight Rhetoric, by Jeff Ousborne, for free, or combine　a Spotlight Reader with a Bedford/St. Martin's rhetoric or handbook for a significant discount.　

Multiple perspectives on the role of subcultures in American life. In order to foster student engagement, five chapters, built around central questions on the subject of cultural identities and marginalized groups, offer numerous entry points for inquiry and discussion. A mix of genres as well as accessible and challenging selections allows instructors to tailor their approach to each classroom. For instance:

  • Arlene Stein, in an excerpt from The Stranger Next Door, examines how certain groups become marginalized, either by choice or by circumstance.

  • Kristen Schilt, in "The Appropriation and Packaging of Riot Grrrl Politics," analyzes Riot Grrrl, a 1990s music subculture and community of empowerment for young women.

  • Mark Stryker, in "A Street Art Culture Class as Graffiti Goes Mainstream," examines the tensions that arise when criminal street-art is reconfigured as commercially viable "gallery art."

Thoughtful support for writers and instructors. A general introduction, chapter introductions, and headnotes provide context. 　Prompts and assignments offer suggestions for discussion, informal writing, research, ways to connect selections, and research projects.  A website for the series offers support for teaching the themes in each volume at macmillanlearning.com/spotlight.

An appendix, "Sentence Guides for Academic Writers." This section helps with an essential skill: working with and responding to others’ ideas. This practical module helps students develop an academic writing voice by giving them sentence guides, or templates, to follow in a variety of composing situations

New to This Edition

"American Subcultures provides a fresh look at cultural studies for composition instruction. The readings are engaging and diverse with topics that encourage students' critical thinking and exploration."
--Michelle Sidler, Auburn University

"The diversity found in the subcultural milieu reminds us that there are many ways to live, and many divisions between lifestyles. Whether you take part or not, understanding those on the margins helps us to better understand so-called mainstream culture. American Subcultures is a quality guide to this type of understanding."
--Kenneth Culton, Niagara University

"This text is a welcome addition to the canon of freshman composition readers. The thoughtful selections are engaging without being either condescending or intimidating, and the selections often work well in tandem to create a space for dialogue within the composition classroom."
--Cari Keebaugh, North Shore Community College

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Table of Contents

About The Bedford Spotlight Reader Series
Preface for Instructors
We’re All In. As Always.
Contents by Discipline
Contents by Theme
Contents by Rhetorical Purpose
Introduction for Students

Chapter One: What Is Life Like on the Margins?
Arlene Stein, from The Stranger Next Door
G. Beato, The Lords of Dogtown
Nina Strochlic, American Gypsies Are a Persecuted Minority That Is Starting to Fight Back
Immy Humes, A Life Apart: A Brief Introduction to Hasidism
Richard Stevick, Growing Up Amish: Building an Amish Identity
Tristan Ahtone, Native American Gangs
Teresa Gowan, from Hobos, Hustlers, and Backsliders: Homeless in San Francisco

Chapter Two: How Do Subcultures Define Themselves?
Sinclair Bolden, The Real Real: The Five Ways Subcultures Self-Police Themselves Online
Anatole Broyard, A Portrait of the Hipster
Cosplay: Two Views: Linda Stasi, Syfy Looks at World of Make-Believe Reality in Heroes of Cosplay; Elisa Melendez, Cosplay Is Creative, Not Crazy
Sue-Ellen Case, Making Butch: An Historical Memoir of the 1970s
Edward Dolnick, Deafness as Culture
Hunter S. Thompson, from Hell’s Angels
BJ Gallagher, Military BRATS = Bright. Resilient. Active. Talented. Successful.
William Finnegan, The Unwanted

Chapter Three: How Do Subcultures Challenge Authority?
Bruce Levine, Why Anti-Authoritarians Are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill
Alex Forman, San Francisco Style: The Diggers and the Love Revolution
Lydia Crafts, Muhammad Rocked the Casbah
Kristen Schilt, The Appropriation and Packaging of Riot Grrrl Politics
Ariel Climer, Riding to Resist: L.A. Bicyclists Brave Death to Empower Communities
Ross Haenfler, Hip Hop – "Doing" Gender and Race in Subcultures
Dana Goodyear, Raw Deal
George Gurley, Pleasures of the Fur

Chapter Four: What Values Do Subcultures Share with Mainstream America?
James Dowd and Laura Dowd, The Center Holds
Leslie Heywood, from Building Otherwise: Bodybuilding as Immersive Practice
Travis Culley, from The Immortal Class: Bike Messengers and the Cult of Human Power
Scott Anderson, The Polygamists
Kim Murphy, The American Redoubt: Where Survivalists Plan to Survive
Bob Frost, Low and Slow: The History of Lowriders
Glenden Brown, Femininity and Toughness: What Rodeo Queens Tell Us about America
Douglas Haddow, Hipsters: The Dead End of Western Civilization

Chapter Five: What Happens When Subcultures Go Mainstream?
Cody C. Delistraty, Commercializing the Counterculture
Brett Scott, The Hacker Hacked
Mark Stryker, A Street Art Culture Clash as Graffiti Goes Mainstream
Michaelangelo Matos, How the Internet Transformed the American Rave Scene
Brittany Julious, The State of Black Subcultures in 21st Century America
Patton Oswalt, Wake Up, Geek Culture. Time to Die
Dylan Clark, The Death and Life of Punk, The Last Subculture

Sentence Guides for Academic Writers

Index of Authors and Titles

Eric Rawson

Eric Rawson teaches writing at the University of Virginia, after a long career at the University of Southern California. In addition to his work in rhetoric, he has published widely in the fields of sound studies, modern poetry, and crime fiction. He holds an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a Ph.D. from USC.

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