House Signs and Collegiate Fun: Sex, Race, and Faith in a College Town

✍ Scribed by Chaise LaDousa

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 289
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

It's no secret that fun is important to American college students, but it is unusual for scholars to pay attention to how undergraduates represent and reflect on their partying. Linguist and anthropologist Chaise LaDousa explores the visual manifestations of collegiate fun in a Midwestern college town where house signs on off-campus student residences are a focal point of college culture. With names like Boot 'N Rally, The Plantation, and Crib of the Rib, house signs reproduce consequential categories of gender, sexuality, race, and faith in a medium students say is benign. Through his analysis of house signs and what students say about them, LaDousa introduces the reader to key concepts and approaches in cultural analysis.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Transcription Conventions
Introduction: House Signs and Their Display
1. Bed Booze & Beyond: History and Ethnography of Collegiate Fun
2. Witty House Name: The Textual Lives of House Signs
3. Inn Pursuit . . . of Christ: The Unevenness of Agency
4. Ghetto Fabulous and Plantation: Racial Difference in a Space of Fun
5. Hot Box, Box Office, and Fill’er Up: Reflections on Gender and Sexuality
Conclusion: Remarks on Cultural Production and Ethnography
Notes
References
Index