Arthur Asa Berger

"This book offers a semiotically informed ethnographic study of contemporary culture in Rajasthan and in India generally. It adapts the methodology of analyzing cultures found in Roland Barthes' semiotic portrait of Japanese culture, Empire of Signs, but adds an analysis of lifestyles as explicated in the work of social anthropologist Mary Douglas, political scientist Aaron Wildavsky, and a number of other social scientists. This book is, at first, a guide to Rajasthan and India, and it is that, but it is also more in that it considers tourism from both an anthropological and sociological level." "Berger begins with statistics on tourism and other aspects of life in Rajasthan and India, and then considers how tourism in India compares with tourism in other important tourism destinations. He refers to the "Imaginary India" as the picture created in tourists' minds with the help of guidebooks, media, and the Internet before they actually travel to India.^ He then discusses these representations and how they are actually different from the country itself. The trip itself then becomes the search for the authentic India - the goal is to find places before they are discovered. He calls this "Semiotic Rajasthan," where the representations are compared to actuality. After offering a discussion of semiotic theory, Berger interprets and analyzes a number of important aspects of Rajasthani and Indian culture such as: the Taj Mahal, the Palace of Winds in Jaipur, the notorious rat temple in Deshnok, and sacred cows. Lastly, he discusses his own trip and how the impact of Rajasthan did not fully register until he returned home." "This volume's strength lies in the author's ability to write in an accessible manner, assemble the book in an interesting way, and guide the reader along the narrative trail.^ While this book is a guidebook to Rajasthan, it also serves as a good introduction to ethnography for beginning students and an interested general audience. It moves from basic explanations, such as that of semiotics, to complex applications all with the grace of good story telling."--Jacket.

"In Ocean Travel and Cruising: A Cultural Analysis, author Arthur Asa Berger turns his eye to the phenomenon of ocean cruising. This book brings a multidisciplinary cultural studies approach to the subject. It examines ocean cruising from economic, sociological, semiotic, psychoanalytic, and marketing perspectives, offering insights not provided by the more traditional sociological approaches to the subject. You'll explore cruise demographics, the relationship between cruising and gender, the sociology of dining on cruise ships, hedonism and pleasure seeking, the "compulsion to cruise," consolidation in the industry, the exploitation of workers on cruise ships, and a great deal more."--BOOK JACKET.

"The Agent in the Agency is a book about popular culture and the role it plays in people's lives and in American society. The first section of the book, on theoretical concerns, deals with the meanings of the terms "popular" and "culture," with how cultures vary, and with the impact popular culture has on our personalities. It discusses a number of ways of analyzing popular culture texts and then considers the relationship between popular culture and political cultures and other social groups." "The second section of the book contains analyses of topics such as the Superbowl, the sitcom Frasier, Bloopers, and everyday rites and rituals. The title of the book comes from a chapter that offers an extended ethnography the author made of two advertising agencies - one in London in 1973 and one in San Francisco 25 years later. The book also contains a discussion of the author's travails in writing his dissertation on the comic strip Li'l Abner and concludes with some thoughts about surviving Survivor and other popular culture crazes."--Jacket.

"The Mass Comm Murders is a novel way (both literally and figuratively) to introduce students to mass communication theory. Berger's latest comic murder mystery again features Inspector Solomon Hunter and his sidekick, Sergeant Talcott Weams, in the search for who is snuffing out a group of media theorists - though only after each, in turn, explains his or her theory of mass communications. Highlighting theories from semiotics to the spiral of silence, Berger combines theoretical discussion with a satire of academia and a parody of the mystery genre, complete with eccentric professors and international intrigue. This fun and accessible text is an ideal supplement for courses in mass communication and communication theory."--BOOK JACKET.

In a series of short vignettes endearingly illustrated by the author, Arthur Asa Berger gives Americans a profound way to understand their morning rituals. Have you ever considered, for instance, that the digital clock, by producing free-floating liquid numerals disconnecting us from both time past and time future, could be interpreted as a metaphor for the alienation many people feel in contemporary society? Or consider our nightclothes: The pajama is the most immediate witness to our sexual activities; thus, we cover our pajamas with a bathrobe to guard against the anxiety of being revealed to other family members. The pajama is intricately connected to human shame. Bloom's Morning with thirty-six short chapters bracketed by brief essays on the nature of semiotic analysis, is a perfect book for the inquisitive mind.