Further Reading

Further reading links to supplement your studies.

This guide includes an eclectic selection of examples of different forms of textual analysis:

  • Blonsky (1985) A famous collection of essays, all devoted to the analysis of ‘signs’.
    Blonsky, M. (ed.) (1985) On Signs. Baltimore, MY: Johns Hopkins University Press.
     
  • Darnton (2010) A wonderful account of the subversive power of ‘viral’ communication networks in a surveillance society long before our Internet age – eighteenth-century Paris.
    Darnton, R. (2010) Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in Eighteenth-Century Paris. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
     
  • Du Gay et al. (1997) Everything you ever wanted to know about how the ‘turn to culture’ impinges on our lives using the once newfangled Sony Walkman as an example.
    Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Jones, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, H. (1997) Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
     
  • Lazzarato (2014) The key production process for capitalism is the production of subjectivity, which is accomplished through a ‘regime of signs’ that ensures our social subjection and ‘machinic enslavement’ – we are the indebted subjects of finance capital.
    Lazzarato, M. (2014) Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e).
     
  • Perec (1999) An extraordinary writer, famed for his legendary novel, Life: A User’s Manual (2008), crafts a glorious account of innumerable ‘species’ of spaces (from the Page, via the Bedroom and the Apartment, to the Country and the World). Question your teaspoons!
    Perec, G. (1999) Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, revised edition. London: Penguin.
     
  • Rybczynski (2000) in attempting to identify the most significant invention of the past millennium, uncovers the mind-boggling secret history of the screwdriver and screw. This is a glorious example of why one should never take anything for granted.
    Rybczynski, W. (2000) One Good Turn: A Natural History of the Screwdriver and the Screw. New York: Simon & Schuster.
     
  • Schivelbusch (1993) presents an astonishing world of social conflict and cultural struggle that surrounded the introduction of pepper, coffee, chocolate, tobacco, and opiates into Europe. It is a remarkable study of the modernization and industrialization of culture.
    Schivelbusch, W. (1993) Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants. New York: Vintage.