The Last Dinosaur – The Life & Times of a Cultural Icon: The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon - Hardcover

Mitchell, Wjt

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226532046 ISBN 13: 9780226532042

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 1998

Synopsis

This text addresses the question of how dinosaurs moved from natural extinction to pop culture resurrection, exploring the animal's place in our lives and the source of its popular appeal. In tracing the cultural family tree of the dinosaur there is discovered a creature of striking flexibility, linked to dragons and mammoths, skyscrapers and steam engines, cowboys and Indians. Here the dinosaur becomes a cultural symbol whose plurality of meaning and often contradictory nature is emblematic of modern society itself. As a scientific entity, the dinosaur endured a near-eclipse for over a century, but as an image it is enjoying its widest circulation. The text suggests it endures because it is uniquely malleable, a figure of both innovation and obsolescence, massive power and pathetic failure - the totem animal of modernity.

About this title

Product Description:

The Last Dinosaur Book Exploring the connection between dinosaurs and our everyday lives (their pop-culture resurrection and their powerful appeal), this text looks at a cultural symbol whose plurality of meaning and often contradictory nature is emblematic of modern society itself. Full description

About the Author:

W. J. T. Mitchell is the Gaylord Donnelley Distinguished Service Professor of English and Art History at the University of Chicago and editor of Critical Inquiry.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0226532046
• ISBN 13: 9780226532042
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 332