Lucky Strikes and a Three Martini Lunch: Thinking about Television's Mad Men (Second Edition) - Softcover

Jennifer C. Dunn; Jimmie Manning; Danielle M. Stern

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1443875457 ISBN 13: 9781443875455

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015

Synopsis

This second edition of Lucky Strikes and a Three Martini Lunch: Thinking About Televisions Mad Men explores the attributes of the AMC series that allow it to be such a popular and vital contribution to contemporary cultural discourse. Set in the 1960s in New York, the Emmy and Peabody-winning series follows the competitive, seductive, and oftentimes ruthless lives of the men and women of Madison Avenues advertising agencies. Many alluring and captivating qualities constitute the Mad Men experience: the way it evokes nostalgia, even from those who did not live in the era being portrayed; its interrogations of identities, and how these explorations of the past illuminate viewers concepts of the present; the compelling (and often heartbreaking) relationships between characters trying to make their way in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world; and the titillation of the characters discovery of the power of mass-mediated communication and its abilities to allow learning, information sharing, manipulation, and connection, not to mention how their journeys reflect our own in contemporary society. The essays collected in this volume speak to both fans of the show who may not typically embrace theory and criticism, as well as those who do. Additionally, this version was designed with educators in mind. It still includes engaging essays that critically analyze the show from a multitude of perspectives, but now they are organized in way to facilitate easy use in the classroom. This structure allows educators to simply construct and conduct a course using this book as a primary textbook and organize the course according to the way it is laid out. Each chapter provides any type of reader with the opportunity to think about and enjoy the show even after it is no longer on the air.

About this title

Review:

"Lucky Strikes' second edition joins the ranks of several other Mad Men-themed edited collections, but stands apart as the most comprehensive examination of the Mad Men universe to date [...] An exceptional, exciting feature of this collection-and what distinguishes the second edition of Lucky Strikes from the first-is the editors' focus on the productive potential of Mad Men as a pedagogical resource. Theirs is the most useful text presently available for teaching the histories, artifacts, industries, and politics of US culture-past and present-through Mad Men. [...] As a resource for college or high school level educators interested in bringing the "Mad Men experience" to bear on teaching topics like the American Dream, happiness, nostalgia, advertising, fashion, identity, feminism, race relations, art, media, and other aspects of culture in their contextual specificity, one can do no better than the second edition of Lucky Strikes. Additionally, more so than the other available collections, Lucky Strikes is accessible in both prose and theory, making it an engaging and enjoyable read for those outside of the academy as well as in."Megan WoodUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillThe Popular Culture Studies Journal, 3: 1 & 2 (2015)Reviews of the first edition:"As one who came of age in the 60s, this well-crafted collection of essays examining Mad Men will resonate with my era, fans, and scholars alike. Ranging broadly across nostalgia, identities, relationships, gender and sexuality, media and pedagogy, the essays offer close readings of discrete themes, encased adroitly in relevant theoretical frameworks. Fans, in particular, will find the arguments highly accessible. The authors have written in a style that is clear - making it easy to find points of agreement and disagreement with claims offered."Raymie E. McKerrowOhio University"Lucky Strikes and a Three Martini Lunch delivers what its subtitle promises - since reading it I've been thinking about Mad Men, and mulling over the many-layered meanings embedded in the series. The book guided my thoughts deftly because the chapters approach Mad Men from such a wide variety of perspectives. The book actually does more than it promises. Reading it is a lot of fun - something you don't hear too often about an academic book."Lynn H. TurnerMarquette University

About the Author:

Jennifer C. Dunn is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Communication at Dominican University. Her work has been published in Communication Studies, Feminist Media Studies, and Sexuality and Culture, among other journals and collections. Jimmie Manning is Associate Professor of Communication Theory in the Communication Department at Northern Illinois University. His work has been published in journals such as Communication Monographs, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, and Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. He also co-authored Researching Interpersonal Relationships: Qualitative Methods, Studies, and Analysis. Danielle M. Stern is an Associate Professor in Christopher Newport Universitys Department of Communication. Her research has been published in Text and Performance Quarterly, The Communication Review, Womens Studies in Communication, and other journals and books.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1443875457
• ISBN 13: 9781443875455
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 415
• Editor: Jennifer C. Dunn, Jimmie Manning, Danielle M. Stern