American Dreamtime: A Cultural Analysis of Popular Movies, and Their Implications for a Science of HumanityAmericans consider themselves practical, realistic people engaged in building a complex technological civilization. At the same time, however, we spend countless billions on activities that fly in the face of our supposed commitment to down-to-earth realism: our movies, television programs, and sports events seem to be the pastimes of a whimsical, fantasy-ridden people. American Dreamtime explores these conflicting images through an analysis of blockbuster movies, revealing the intimate ties our daily activity and thought have with a world of myth. |
Contents
The Primacy of Myth | 23 |
A Theory of Culture as Semiospace | 51 |
Dimensionality in Nature and Culture | 59 |
Copyright | |
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action alien ambivalence American Dreamtime animals and machines anthro anthropological semiotics anthropologists artifacts audience become behavior Bond movies Bond's bubble C3PO cellular automaton chapter characters Chief Brody cinematic complex concept critical cultural analysis cultural anthropology cultural productions Darth Vader Death Star described dimensionality dramatic Dreamtime ecology ecology movement elemental dilemmas existence experience fact figure film football fundamental geometry happen heroes Hickok Hilbert space hominid Homo human identity images individual interaction intersystems James Bond Jaws Jedi Jurassic Park kinship language linguistic lives Luke Skywalker mathematical mechanosemiotic modern myth mythic nature ourselves paradox particles particular perspective phase space physical Poltergeist popular movies question ritual sandpile sapience scene semiospace semiotic semiotic dimensions sense simply social society species Spielberg Star Wars story of Bond supergrosser theme theory things thought tokens totemism transformation turn Vader virtual White Shark