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Irony & Argument

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CULTURAL CRITICISM

• Editorials
  For comparing argument styles
  
  
• The Onion: Congress Threatens to Leave D.C. Unless New Capitol Is Built
  Parody newspaper published this article claiming Congress threatened to move to Charlotte or Memphis; The Beijing Evening News did not realize this was satire, and ran it as a top story
  
  
• Articles on the Onion story about Congress moving to Charlottes or Memphis
  
  
• Alexander Abramov: Nevermind
  How political rock became a pose
  
  
• Steve Albini: The Problem with Music
  Albini is a near-legendary rock producer and musician from Chicago, who's produced bands like The Pixies, Nirvana, The Breeders, The Blues Explosion, more
  
  
• Chris Barsanti: Bohemia Revisited
  
  
• Jean Baudrillard: The Precession of Simulacra
  
  
• David Beers: Irony is Dead! Long Live Irony!
  A response to the calls for the end of irony after 9/11
  
  
• Walter Benjamin: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction
  
  
• John Berger: The Ambiguity of the Photograph
  
  
• Nell Bernstein: Goin' Gangsta, Choosin' Cholita
  
  
• Todd Boyd: So You Wann Be a Gangsta
  
  
• John E. Calfee: How Advertising Informs to Our Benefit
  
  
• William Jelani Cobb: White Negro, Please
  On white society's misaligned embrace of hip hop through Eminem
  
  
• Mark Cooper: Reclaiming the First Amendment
  
  
• Gary Engle: What Makes Superman So Darned American?
  
  
• Thomas Frank: Alternative to What?
  
  
• Thomas Frank: Twenty-Nothing
  
  
• John Taylor Gatto: Against School
  Can be read with Postman's article against Sesame Street
  
  
• Richard Goldstein: War Horny
  On military chic as a style
  
  
• Lynn Harris: Living Large -Clothes for Obese Kids
  How image becomes everything
  
  
• Frederic Jameson: Postmodernism and Consumer Society
  
  
• Sut Jhally: Image-Based Culture
  
  
• Douglas Kellner: Network Television and American Society
  
  
• Naomi Klein: Culture Jamming
  
  
• Robert McChesney: The Emerging Struggle for a Free Press
  
  
• Robert McChesney: Public Broadcasting Past and Present
  
  
• Marshall McLuhan: Media Hot and Cold
  
  
• Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message
  
  
• Stephen Metcalf: Debunking Punk
  
  
• National Geographic-Roper Geographic Literacy Survey, 2002
  Survey shows that only 13% of American students could find Iraq or Iran on a map, only 17% could find Afghanistan, and over 30% believed the U.S. had over a billion people.
  
  
• George Orwell: Politics and the English Language
  
  
• Plato: The Allegory of the Cave
  
  
• Plato: The Phaedrus
  
  
• Neil Postman: Teaching as an Amusing Activity
  Claims Sesame Street teaches children to watch TV, not their ABC's
  
  
• Roger Rosenblatt: The Age of Irony Comes to an End
  An argument on how after 9/11 we can no longer have irony in our society (is this dialogic or combative?)
  
  
• Annette Rottenberg: Understanding Argument | Mark Leyner: Life, Liberty, Whatever
  
  
• Rep. Bernie Sanders, VT: Why Americans Should Take Back the Media
  
  
• The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
  Also see Harvard Gazette story Which Comes First, Language or Thought?
  
  
• Madan Sarap: Baudrillard and Some Cultural Practices
  Help with Baudrillard
  
  
• Jack Shafer: Why I Don't Trust Readers
  
  
• Jack Solomon: Masters of Desire
  
  
• Gloria Steinem: Sex, Lies and Advertising
  
  
• Tom Vanderbilt: The Advertised Life
  
  
• David Foster Wallace: A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
  Examining the dynamics of advertising and the micromanagement of enjoyment
  
  
• David Foster Wallace: Tense Present
  On the limits of langauge and debates over usage
  
  
• David Foster Wallace: The View from Mrs. Thompson's House
  On watching 9/11 coverage at the neighbor's, and watching them watch the coverage
  
  
• Curtis White: The New Censorship
  On self-censorship through staid comfort in post-9/11 world
  
  
• Curtis White: Whatever, Dude
  On reading a cowboy movie critically
  
  
• Colson Whitehead: Swept Away
  On television
  
  
• Colson Whitehead: The Way We Live Now
  On television and politics
  
  
• Patricia Williams: Fiction and Truth in Advertising
  
  
• Raymond Williams: Technology and Society
  
  
• Thomas de Zengotita: The Numbing of the American Mind
  
  
• Thomas de Zengotita: The Romance of Empire
  On how we valorize war through media
  
  
• Slavoj Zizek: Will You Laugh For Me Please?
  On the inventor of the laugh track