Background
Gamson, Joshua Paul was born on November 16, 1962 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Son of William Anthony and Zelda (Finkelstein) Gamson.
( Moving from People magazine to publicists' offices to t...)
Moving from People magazine to publicists' offices to tours of stars' homes, Joshua Gamson investigates the larger-than-life terrain of American celebrity culture. In the first major academic work since the early 1940s to seriously analyze the meaning of fame in American life, Gamson begins with the often-heard criticisms that today's heroes have been replaced by pseudoheroes, that notoriety has become detached from merit. He draws on literary and sociological theory, as well as interviews with celebrity-industry workers, to untangle the paradoxical nature of an American popular culture that is both obsessively invested in glamour and fantasy yet also aware of celebrity's transparency and commercialism. Gamson examines the contemporary "dream machine" that publicists, tabloid newspapers, journalists, and TV interviewers use to create semi-fictional icons. He finds that celebrity watchers, for whom spotting celebrities becomes a spectator sport akin to watching football or fireworks, glean their own rewards in a game that turns as often on playing with inauthenticity as on identifying with stars. Gamson also looks at the "celebritization" of politics and the complex questions it poses regarding image and reality. He makes clear that to understand American public culture, we must understand that strange, ubiquitous phenomenon, celebrity.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520083539/?tag=2022091-20
( Imagine a pied piper singing in falsetto, wearing sequi...)
Imagine a pied piper singing in falsetto, wearing sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco and on to a liberation where nothing was straight-laced or old-fashioned. And everyone, finally, was welcome--to come as themselves. This is not a fairy tale. This was real, mighty real, and disco-sensation Sylvester was the piper. Yale-trained sociologist Joshua Gamson uses Sylvester's life to lead us through the story of the 1970s, when a generation took off its shame. Celebrity, sociology, and music history mingle in this endlessly entertaining story of a singer who embodied the freedom, spirit, and flamboyance of a golden moment in American culture.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312425694/?tag=2022091-20
Gamson, Joshua Paul was born on November 16, 1962 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Son of William Anthony and Zelda (Finkelstein) Gamson.
Bachelor, Swarthmore College, 1985; Master of Arts, University of California, Berkeley, 1988; Doctor of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, 1992.
Assistant editor Moment Magazine, Boston, 1985-1986. Teacher high school The Cambridge School, Weston, 1986-1987. Instructor University California, Berkeley, 1992, lecturer, 1993.
Assistant professor Yale University, New Haven, 1993—1998, associate professor, 1998—2002, University San Francisco, since 2002.
( Imagine a pied piper singing in falsetto, wearing sequi...)
( Moving from People magazine to publicists' offices to t...)
(First Edition)
Activist, media coordinator Act Up/San Francisco, 1988-1990. Member American Sociological Association (council member council on statistics of lesbians, gays and bisexuals in sociology since 1995, Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline award 1995), Eastern Sociological Association.