Outlaw Representation

Outlaw Representation is a Beacon Press publication.

According to the Washington Post, no one who cares about contemporary African-American cultures can ignore bell hooks' electrifying feminist explorations. Targeting cultural icons as diverse as Madonna and Spike Lee, Outlaw Culture presents a collection of essays that pulls no punches. As hooks herself notes, interrogations of popular culture can b

With its appeal predicated upon what civilized society rejects, there has always been something hidden in plain sight when it comes to the outlaw figure as cultural myth. Damian A. Carpenter traverses the unsettled outlaw territory that is simultaneously a part of and apart from settled American society by examining outlaw myth, performance, and perception over time. Since the late nineteenth century, the outlaw voice has been most prominent in folk performance, the result being a cultural persona invested in an outlaw tradition that conflates the historic, folkloric, and social in a cultural act. Focusing on the works and guises of Lead Belly, Woody Guthrie, and Bob Dylan, Carpenter goes beyond the outlaw figure’s heroic associations and expands on its historical (Jesse James, Billy the Kid), folk (John Henry, Stagolee), and social (tramps, hoboes) forms. He argues that all three performers represent a culturally disruptive force, whether it be the bad outlaw that Lead Belly represented to an urban bourgeoisie audience, the good outlaw that Guthrie shaped to reflect the social concerns of marginalized people, or the honest outlaw that Dylan offered audiences who responded to him as a promoter of clear-sighted self-evaluation. As Carpenter shows, the outlaw and the law as located in society are interdependent in terms of definition. His study provides an in-depth look at the outlaw figure’s self-reflexive commentary and critique of both performer and society that reflects the times in which they played their outlaw roles.

Richard Meyer's Outlaw Representation tells the amazing, often outrageous, story of the battle over censorship and homosexuality in the modern art world. Featuring detailed analysis, biographical information, and artwork from such famous figures as Andy Warhol and Robert Mapplethorpe, this book will educate and enrage lovers of artistic freedom.

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,0, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Department of English and American Studies), language: English, abstract: The Mexican Revolution of the 1910s alone is considered to have inspired some hundreds of border films, mostly documentaries and docudramas. The Mexican film industry has a nearly equally long history of representing the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. According to Norma Iglesias-Prieto, one of the leading scholars in the field of Mexican border cinema, more than 300 border films were produced in Mexico between 1936 and 1996. “By the 1930s, Mexican producers were beginning to view the border as a profitable theme for Mexico’s national film industry” (Iglesias-Prieto 1998). Referring to Iglesias-Prieto’s classic book-length study "Entre yerba, polvo y plomo: Lo fronterizo visto por el cine mexicano" (1991), Fregoso argues that Mexico produced 147 border films in the decade between 1979 and 1989 alone (cp. 2003). Charles Ramírez Berg also points to a boom in 'cine fronterizo' in the 1980s: "Border films have flourished on the lowest end of the economic and aesthetic Mexican moviemaking scale for decades. The 'narcotraficante' film, a Mexican police genre, is the most popular (...)

This book provides an insightful overview of the major cultural forms of 1930s America: literature and drama, music and radio, film and photography, art and design, and a chapter on the role of the federal government in the development of the arts. The intellectual context of 1930s American culture is a strong feature, whilst case studies of influential texts and practitioners of the decade - from War of the Worlds to The Grapes of Wrath and from Edward Hopper to the Rockefeller Centre - help to explain the cultural impulses of radicalism, nationalism and escapism that characterize the United States in the 1930s.

Celebrated photographer Robert Mapplethorpe challenged the limits of censorship and conformity, combining technical and formal mastery with unexpected, often provocative content that secured his place in history. Mapplethorpe’s artistic vision helped shape the social and cultural fabric of the 1970s and ’80s and, following his death in 1989 from AIDS, informed the political landscape of the 1990s. His photographic works continue to resonate with audiences all over the world. Throughout his career, Mapplethorpe preserved studio files and art from every period and vein of his production, including student work, jewelry, sculptures, and commercial assignments. The resulting archive is fascinating and astonishing. With over 400 illustrations, this volume surveys a virtually unknown resource that sheds new light on the artist’s motivations, connections, business acumen, and talent as a curator and collector.