Literature and Mass Culture Volume 1, Communication in Society [Paperback]

This first volume of the collected writings of sociologist Leo Lowenthal contains his classic theoretical and historical writings on the relationship of art to mass culture. This book series presents Lowenthal's contributions to a theory of the role of communication in modern society.

This volume lays out the basis for a theory of mass culture. Lowenthal demonstrates that the juxtaposition of a low mass culture and a high esoteric culture did not originate in contemporary industrial, bourgeois society but can be traced back to the Middle Ages and antiquity.

Acknowledgments

Preface

Part I: Historical and Empirical Studies

1 Historical Perspectives of Popular Culture
2 The Debate Over Art and Popular Culture: A Synopsis

Excursus A: Notes on the Theater and the Sermon

3 Eighteenth Century England: A Case Study

Excursus B: The Debate on Cultural Standards in Nineteenth Century England

4 The Reception of Dostoevski in PreWorld War I Germany
5 The Biographical Fashion
6 The Triumph of Mass Idols

Excursus C: Some Thoughts on the 1937 Edition of International Who's Who

Part II: Contributions to the Philosophy of Communication

7 On Sociology of Literature (1932)
8 On Sociology of Literature (1948)
9 Humanistic Perspectives of David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd
10 Popular Culture: A Humanistic and Sociological Concept