Bread & circuses : theories of mass culture as social decay

Lively and well written, Bread and Circuses analyzes theories that have treated mass culture as either a symptom or a cause of social decadence. Discussing many of the most influential and representative theories of mass culture, it ranges widely from Greek and Roman origins, through Marx, Nietzsche...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Brantlinger, Patrick
Content type: Book
Published: Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1985, 1985, ©1983
Subjects:
Online Access:Volltext
Source:E-Books
Table of Contents:
  • Includes bibliographical references and index
  • 1. Introduction: The two classicisms
  • 2. The classical roots of the mass culture debate
  • 3. "The opium of the people"
  • 4. Some nineteenth-century themes: Decadence, masses, empire, gothic revivals
  • 5. Crowd psychology and Freud's model of perpetual decadence
  • 6. Three versions of modern classicism: Ortega, Eliot, Camus
  • 7. The dialectic of enlightenment
  • 8. Television: Spectacularity vs. McLuhanism
  • 9. Conclusion: Toward post-industrial society