Full Description
What do dogs mean in America? How do Americans make meaning through their dogs? The United States has long expressed its cultural unconscious through canine iconography. Through our dogs, we figure out what we're thinking and who we are, representing by proxy the things that we don't quite want to recognize in ourselves. Often, it's a specific breed or type of dog that serves as an informal cultural mascot, embodying an era's needs, fears, desires, longings, aspirations, repressions, and hopeless contradictions. Combining cultural studies with personal narrative, this book creates a playful, speculative reading of American culture through its canine self-representations. Looking at seven different breeds or types over the last seven decades, readers will go on an intellectual dog walk through some of the mazes of American cultural mythology.
Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Breedologies: How We Look with Dogs
Chapter One. Made in America: Cocker Spaniels in the 1950s
Chapter Two. Thousands of Howls: Beagles in the 1960s
Chapter Three. Rewilding: Dogs as Wolves in the 1970s
Chapter Four. Breeding Bullies: Pit Bulls in the 1980s
Chapter Five. A Dog for All Seasons: Labrador Retrievers in the 1990s
Chapter Six. Mutty Waters: Mixed Breeds in the 2000s
Chapter Seven. Made to Order: Designer Dogs in the 2010s
Afterword: How Will We Look with Dogs?
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index
