Lexington Books
Pages: 346
Trim: 6⅜ x 9½
978-0-7391-2141-2 • Hardback • October 2007 • $147.00 • (£113.00)
978-0-7391-2142-9 • Paperback • October 2007 • $60.99 • (£47.00)
978-0-7391-6166-1 • eBook • October 2007 • $57.50 • (£44.00)
Scott A. Lukas is a professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at Lake Tahoe College.
Chapter 1 The Themed Space: Locating Culture, Nation, and Self
Chapter 2 Torque: Dollywood, Pigeon Forge, and Authentic Feelings in the Smoky Mountains
Chapter 3 Luna Park's Fantasy World and Deamland's White City: Fire Spectacles at Coney Island as Elemental Performativity
Chapter 4 From Downtown to Theme Town: Reinventing America's Smaller Historic Retail Districts
Chapter 5 Theming as a Sensory Phenomenon: Discovering the Senses on the Las Vegas Strip
Chapter 6 The Landscape of Power: Imagineering Consumer Behavior at China's Theme Parks
Chapter 7 Theming Mythical Africa at The Lost City
Chapter 8 Leisure Space: Thematic Style and Cultural Exclusion in Casablanca
Chapter 9 "Above Us Only Sky": Themes, Simulations, and Liverpool John Lennon Airport
Chapter 10 Love Hotels: Sex and the Rhetoric of Themed Spaces
Chapter 11 How the Theme Park Gets Its Power: Lived Theming, Social Control, and the Themed Worker Self
Chapter 12 Behind-the-Scenes Space: Promoting Production in a Landscape of Consumption
Chapter 13 The Experience of a Lifestyle
Chapter 14 Themed Environments and Virtual Spaces: Video Games, Violent Play, and Digital Enemies
Chapter 15 A Politics of Reverence and Irreverence: Social Discourse on Theming Controversies
Georges Bataille once wrote that people need the strange, and now you too can get your fix of it at Dollywood or Dracula World, a Star Trek dentist office or toilet-themed restaurant, the Hawg Heaven Biker Bar or any number of Japanese love hotels. Here are fifteen anthropological studies of the theming, scheming, stimulating simulation of today's Vegasified consumerism. The subject matter of this audacious collection will be appalling to some and enthralling to others; but the book is riveting reading, for it is, after all, all about all of us.
— Allen F. Roberts
Theoretically rich and richly demonstrated by appropriate case studies...the ideas are great! Highly recommended.
— Choice Reviews
After decades of cultural studies work on themed parks,I was surprised to be so moved by the freshness and originality of this collection, while being impressed with the depth of insight and careful review of a whole generation of literature that it offers. I have long been impressed by the quirky originality of Scott Lukas's thought which has left an impressive guiding mark on this volume of new talent in cultural analysis.
— George E. Marcus, coeditor of Writing Culture