Culture: A Reader for Writers

Read. Write. Oxford. Culture: A Reader for Writers presents work from a broad spectrum of writers who are grappling with the cultural trends around them. Some defend the status quo, some wonder what to make of new gadgets, some embrace uncertainty, and others celebrate inevitable shifts that will resonate for years to come. Whether the topic is working conditions, student loans, movie protagonists, or soldiers returning from war, the writers give voice to the discomfort and hope that accompanies change. And more importantly, they show the writhing and wonder that makes culture itself readable. Each chapter takes on a particularly urgent subject of contemporary conversation: work, consumerism, language, social media, identity, entertainment, nature, politics, and war. The photo galleries give shape and imagery to the subjects discussed in the readings.

Developed for the freshman composition course, Culture: A Reader for Writers includes an interdisciplinary mix of public, academic, and scientific reading selections, providing students with the rhetorical knowledge and compositional skills required to participate effectively in academic and public conversations about culture and change.

Culture: A Reader for Writers is part of a series of brief single-topic readers from Oxford University Press designed for today’s college writing courses. Each reader in this series approaches a topic of contemporary conversation from multiple perspectives.