11. Literature of the Vietnam War

Written by a cultural historian, this text offers a wide-ranging exploration of the causes, meaning and continuing significance of the American war in Vietnam, arguing that the war was not a mistake, or a quagmire but a defining event in global history.

Militainment, Inc. offers provocative, sometimes disturbing insight into the ways that war is presented and viewed as entertainment—or "militainment"—in contemporary American popular culture. War has been the subject of entertainment for centuries, but Roger Stahl argues that a new interactive mode of militarized entertainment is recruiting its audience as virtual-citizen soldiers. The author examines a wide range of historical and contemporary media examples to demonstrate the ways that war now invites audiences to enter the spectacle as an interactive participant through a variety of channels—from news coverage to online video games to reality television. Simply put, rather than presenting war as something to be watched, the new interactive militainment presents war as something to be played and experienced vicariously. Stahl examines the challenges that this new mode of militarized entertainment poses for democracy, and explores the controversies and resistant practices that it has inspired. This volume is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationship between war and media, and it sheds surprising light on the connections between virtual battlefields and the international conflicts unfolding in Iraq and Afghanistan today.

Covering many aspects of the Vietnam War that have not been addressed before, this book supplies new perspectives from academics as well as Vietnam veterans that explore how this key conflict of the 20th century has influenced everyday life and popular culture during the war as well as for the past 50 years. How did the experience of the Vietnam War change the United States, not just in the 1950s through the 1970s, but through to today? What role do popular music and movies play in how we think of the Vietnam War? How similar are the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—and now Syria—to the Vietnam War in terms of duration, cost, success and failure rates, and veteran issues? This two-volume set addresses these questions and many more, examining how the Vietnam War has been represented in media, music, and film, and how American popular culture changed because of the war. Accessibly written and appropriate for students and general readers, this work documents how the war that occurred on the other side of the globe in the jungles of Vietnam impacted everyday life in the United States and influenced various entertainment modes. It not only covers the impact of the counterculture revolution, popular music about Vietnam recorded while the war was being fought (and after), and films made immediately following the end of the war in the 1970s, but also draws connections to more modern events and popular culture expressions, such as films made in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Attention is paid to the impact of social movements like the environmental movement and the civil rights movement and their relationships to the Vietnam War. The set will also highlight how the experiences and events of the Vietnam War are still impacting current generations through television shows such as Mad Men.

Examines how the Vietnam War is perceived in American culture, especially by those who were not in Vietnam.

The Vietnam War is evolving from contemporary memory into history. Fifty years on, it still serves as a benchmark in the history of war reporting and in the representation of conflict in popular culture and historical memory. However, as contemporary culture tries to come to terms with the events and their political, psychological and cultural implications, the â ~realâ (TM) Vietnam War has been appropriated and changed into a set of mythologies which implicate American and Vietnamese national identities specifically, and ideas of modern conflict more broadly, particularly in shaping the mediation of the twenty-first century â ~War on Terrorâ (TM). This collection of interdisciplinary critical essays explores the cultural legacies of the US involvement in South East Asia, considering this process of â ~mythologisingâ (TM) through the lenses of visual media and tracing the warâ (TM)s evolution from contemporary reportage to subsequent interpretation and consumption. It reassesses the role of visual media in covering and remembering the war, its memorialisation, mediation and memory. The origin of this collection of essays was an international conference, titled â oeConsidering Vietnamâ , held at the Imperial War Museum, London, in February 2012, co-organised by the museum and the University of the Arts London Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC).

American popular culture changed dramatically during the Vietnam era. This book explores the popular culture that shaped the baby boomers and the transformation that generation wrought in movies, television, sports, and music. It looks at the ways in which these cultural elements reflected the upheaval and unrest in Vietnam era America.

In this tenth edition of his award-winning introduction, John Storey presents a clear and critical survey of competing theories of, and various approaches to, popular culture. Its breadth and theoretical unity, exemplified through popular culture, means that it can be flexibly and relevantly applied across a number of disciplines. Retaining the accessible approach of previous editions and using appropriate examples from the texts and practices of popular culture, this new edition remains a key introduction to the area. New to this edition: updated throughout with contemporary examples of popular culture a chapter called 'Culture and nature', which includes sections on culture in nature, the Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, and popular culture and climate change updated student resources at routledgelearning.com/culturaltheoryandpopularculture This new edition remains essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of cultural studies, media studies, communication studies, the sociology of culture, popular culture and other related subjects.

Crisis and decline in the working class were frequent themes in American popular culture during the 1970s. In contrast, more positive narratives about America’s managerial and professional class appeared during the 1980s. Focusing on these two key decades, this book explores how portrayals of social class and associated work and labor issues including gender and race appeared in specific films, television shows, and music. Comparing and contrasting how forms of popular media portrayed both unionized and non-unionized workers, the book discusses how workers’ perceptions of themselves were in turn shaped by messages conveyed through media. The book opens with an introduction which outlines the historical context of the immediate post-war period and the heightened social, political, and economic tension of the Cold War era. Three substantial chapters then explore film, television, and music in turn, looking at key works including Star Wars, Coming Home, 9 to 5, Good Times, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and the music of Bruce Springsteen and rap artists. Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, the book is principally situated within wider labor and working-class history research, and the relatively new history of capitalism historical sub-field. This book is vital reading for anyone interested in issues around labor and work in the media, labor history, and popular culture history during two key decades in modern American history.