European Journal of American Culture - Volume 21, Issue 1, 2002

Using Los Angeles between 1988 and 1992 as a model, this article examines the possibility that the racial identities of popular culture forms such as hip hop are spatialized in the conception, perception and representation of the city and its inhabitants. Gangsta rap places images of the black male already present in US/African-American popular culture within the spatial context of post-industrial Los Angeles. At the same time, LA's political and legislative structures absorb the gangsta as a representative of the city's black residents. Between 1988 and 1992, gangsta rap and the Los Angeles municipal structure struggled to represent and effectively control LA's black communities through the image of the gangsta, a battle that eventually engaged real and imagined residents of LA with the very real force of the Los Angeles Police Department.

This article, using new archival evidence, examines the largely unknown story of the formation of the British Association for American Studies in 1955. The tale is not simply one of the US Government imposing a system of American Studies upon British lackeys. At the same time, there is no need for the nave reassurance that BAAS was simply a spontaneous academic initiative. Instead, this is a case of balancing the wishes and support of US sponsors, both the Government and private foundations, with the desire to protect academic autonomy and integrity.

Michael Manheim (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Eugene O'Neill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, xviii + 256 pp., ISBN 0-521-55645-7 (paperback)

William W. Demastes, Theatre of Chaos: Beyond Absurdism, Into Orderly Disorder. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 190 pp., ISBN 0-521-58245-8 (Hardback) 35

Andrew Pepper, The Contemporary American Crime Novel: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Class, Edinburgh University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-7486-1340-4 (paperback)

Michel Delville and Christine Pagnoulle (eds.), The Mechanics of the Mirage: Postwar American Poetry. Lige: Lige Language and Literature, 2000, 320 pp., ISBN 2-87233-025-9 (Paperback) 30

Paul Baepler (ed.), White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, ISBN 0-226-03403-8 (Hardback) 36.75, and 0-226-03404-6 (Paperback) 15.25

Ward H. Lamon, The Life of Abraham Lincoln: from his birth to his inauguration as President, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999, 592 pp., ISBN 0-8032-7985-X, (Paperback) 14.95

Cornelis A. Van Minnen and Sylvia L. Hilton (eds.), Federalism, Citizenship, and Collective Identities in US History, Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2000, ii + 271 pp., ISBN 90-5383-714-0 (Paperback) 42.50

Patricia Merivale and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney (eds.), Detecting Texts: The Metaphysical Detective Story from Poe to Postmodernism, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, 304 pp., ISBN 0-8122-3434-0 (paperback) 15.50

Joe Moran, Star Authors: Literary Celebrity in America, London: Pluto Press, 2000, 192 pp., ISBN 0-7453-1524 0 (hardback), 45.00, ISBN 0-7453-1519 4 (paperback) 14.99

John Tallmadge and Henry Harrington, (eds.), Reading Under the Sign of Nature: New Essays in Ecocriticism, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000, xv + 368 pp., ISBN 0-87480-648-8 (paperback) 24.95

Bryan LeBeau, Religion in America to 1865, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000, vi + 209 pp., ISBN 1-85331-233-9 (paperback) 12.95

Elizabeth Young, Disarming the Nation: Women's Writing and the American Civil War, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999, xvi + 390 pp., ISBN 0-226-96087-0 (hardback) 33.00, ISBN 0-226-96088-9 (paperback) 13.00

Nancy A. Walker, (ed.), What's So Funny: Humor in American Culture, Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1998, xi + 284 pp., ISBN 0-8420-2687-8 (hardback) 55.00, ISBN 0-8420-2688-6 (paperback) 17.95

Lisa M. Cuklanz, Rape on Prime Time: Television, Masculinity, and Sexual Violence, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, 176 pp., ISBN 0-8122-3522-3 (hardback) 33.50, ISBN 0-8122-1710-1 (paperback) 11.95

Jill Andresky Fraser, White-Collar Sweatshop: The Deterioration of Work and Its Rewards in Corporate America, New York and London: W.W. Norton and Co., 2001, 278 pp., ISBN 0-393-04829-2 (hardback) 18.86

David Brauner, Post-War Jewish Fiction: Ambivalence, Self-Explanation and Transatlantic Connections, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave, 2001, ix + 222 pp., ISBN 0-333-74035-1 (hardback) 45.00.

James P. Leary, (ed.), Wisconsin Folklore, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998, 543 pp., (paperback) 19.95, (hardback) 49.95

Rosella Mamoli Zorzi (ed.), Before Peggy Guggenheim: American Women Art Collectors, Departments of Anglo-American and Latin-American Studies, University Ca'Foscari of Venice, Marsilio, 2001, 254 pp., 17 b&w illus., ISBN 88-317-7737-8 (paperback)