Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Taking as its point of departure Roland Barthes' classic series of essays, Mythologies, Rebecca Houze presents an exploration of signs and symbols in the visual landscape of postmodernity. In nine chapters Houze considers a range of contemporary phenomena, from the history of sustainability to the meaning of sports and children's building toys. Among the ubiquitous global trademarks she examines are BP, McDonald's, and Nike. What do these icons say to us today? What political and ideological messages are hidden beneath their surfaces? Taking the idea of myth in its broadest sense, the individual case studies employ a variety of analytic methods derived from linguistics, psychoanalysis, anthropology, sociology, and art history. In their eclecticism of approach they demonstrate the interdisciplinarity of design history and design studies.

Just as Barthes' meditations on culture concentrated on his native France, New Mythologies is rooted in the author's experience of living and teaching in the United States. Houze's reflections encompass both contemporary American popular culture and the history of American industry, with reference to such foundational figures as Thomas Jefferson and Walt Disney. The collection provides a point of entry into today's complex postmodern or post-postmodern world, and suggests some ways of thinking about its meanings, and the lessons we might learn from it.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this book, Houze (Northern Illinois Univ.) attempts to perform a method of semiotic analysis first popularized by Roland Barthes in Mythologies (1957). The attempt is not completely successful. Barthes took objects from several domains of cultural life (for example, fashion, advertising) and gave detailed accounts of their significance. In doing this, he set up a careful semiotic structure, especially making the distinction between denotation and connotation. Barthes's efforts were considered somewhat superficial, a criticism he completely repudiated only in S/Z (1970), which was devoted to analyzing one text. Houze falls into the trap of the "mythology method"; because a connotation is any associated reference a text might have for a reader or viewer, it is at once unassailable (unfalsifiable) and idiosyncratic. In Houze's book, one moves from relata to relata in a stream of consciousness manner, learning a great deal about the trivia behind each cultural marker but ultimately coming away without any overall insight. This book will have a difficult time finding a readership. It is light on theory, and Houze neither uses the method to further or critique existing theory nor proposes a new way of looking or a new theory. Summing Up: Optional. General readers only. --Steven Skaggs, University of Louisville