Download Excerpt Table of Contents Cultural Icons Keyan Tomaselli (Editor); David Scott (Editor) 168 pp. / 6.00 x 9.00 / Jan, 2009 Hardback (978-1-59874-365-4) Paperback (978-1-59874-366-1) Hardback ($79.00) Paperback ($26.95)    Related Interest   - Communications & Media Studies   - Cultural Studies & the Arts The Eiffel Tower—this symbol of industrial development and the French Republic is now associated with a romantic vacation in Paris. Nelson Mandela—the hero of the struggle against apartheid was "Cultural Icons offers a theoretically grounded methodology for analysing complex cultural symbols replete with a set of case studies. Students and scholars of visual culture are likely to find the semiotic approach adopted in this collection useful for analysing visual icons and media. While the methodology is not entirely novel, given its reliance on Peirce’s semiotics and postmodern cultural theory, the specific applications to visual icons and the attention paid to the historical and social contexts in which icons operate make this edited collection a notable contribution to the field of visual studies." - Judith R. Halasz, State University of New York, New Paltz "I found this book to be useful as an example of how semiotics, as an analytical tool, can be applied to national and international images of iconic status and show how the individual perception of meaning is built from exposure to their use in mass media and reinterpreted from local experience...the book is of use in introducing critical evaluation to students, in this case, in the process of understanding how cultural history is an important element of any understanding of a cultural symbol...it would be of great value as part of a curriculum that concentrates on publishing anthropological research for (traditionally) non-anthropological audiences." - Troy Belford, Anthropology Review Database "This is a readable and useful volume that covers a range of topics. . . . the book makes a contribution to an interesting field that will no doubt become even more important as the visuality of culture continues to take central stage. . . . The editors of Cultural Icons have collated a number of essays that deal with a variety of international icons that have accrued distinct cultural meanings. Although the origins of the icons discussed can be located in diverse places such as South Africa, Denmark, France, Norway, Austria and Britain, it is clear that the iconicity that the various authors examine transcends borders. Indeed, one of the strong points of this volume is the way in which the authors demonstrate how localised cultural icons are taken up, mediated, appropriated and even recontextualized. Not only have the cultural icons discussed here become potent intertexts, but they have also become part of the network of significations that characterise contemporary westernised society. Another laudable aspect of this book is that the authors have provided thorough historical contexts for their semiotic unpacking of the cultural icons, thereby adding to the academic rigour and value of the project." - Jeanne van Eeden, Visual Anthropology featured in a British Airways magazine article called “The Power of Brand Mandela.” This book explores these and other contemporary cultural icons that, over time, have been endowed with a complex and powerful layering of meanings. The authors analyze the way in which such icons, whether objects or persons, living or mythical, are constructed and disseminated. They also critically investigate the implications, in semiotic and cultural terms, of the accretion of meaning and popular recognition attached to them, their moral and aesthetic ambiguity, and their enduring appeal to a fascinated public. This slim and provocative volume is ideal for courses in and related to cultural studies.