It's been nearly three weeks since the last post. I've been busy reading and annotating, along with making plans for the rest of the content on this site. Also booking travel. Currently, I am knee-deep in the second edition (2001) of Mark Gottdiener's The Theming of America. I had read the first edition of this excellent book (1998), which tackles theming from a sociological perspective, while doing preliminary research on Disneyland last fall for my Visual Communications class. The second edition is more refined and includes updates as to the development of Las Vegas. Gottdiener is concerned with the transition from traditional theming in classical cultures, to the decline of symbolic form during the rise of industrial capitalism, to the resurgence of theming as means to solve the realization of capital. He is interested also in twentieth century theming as essentially a knee-jerk reaction to modernism in architecture and urban planning, in which traditional symbols were stripped away for efficiency and pure function before form. Gottdiener calls this new postmodern theming the "vengeful return" of the primacy of the symbolism and sign value.
Also on the nightstand is Dream Worlds: Architecture and Entertainment, a German book by journalist and design instructor Oliver Herwig. This text deals with theming only in an adjunct sense; Herwig traces architectural forms in entertainment venues (what he and others have called "architainment") throughout Western history. Thematic design is but a small part of his sampling, yet many of the sites visited are primary examples.
I recently finished The Disneyization of Society by Alan Bryman. This tremendously insightful read shed light on many aspects of theming I had not considered directly. Building on George Ritzer's original classic The McDonaldization of Society, as well as Mark Gottdiener's history and classifications of theming, Bryman mentions that the current critique of disney revolves around the company's cultural exports. He notes that this reductionist sanitizing of source material, stories and characters is often called Disneyfication. The author then argues that the global spread of the processes by which Disney manages and operates their theme parks have been the company's true lasting impact. Bryman distinguishes his critique by calling it Disneyization. Theming is but one of the characteristics he describes.
The American Amusement Park by Dale Samuelson with Wendy Yegoiants was a text I read a few weeks back, and it gives a good general outline of the development of amusement venues, fairs, expositions and finally theme parks. Something interesting I picked up from this was that many original coney island parks—all of which were gone by the end of World War II—utilized very early postmodern theming.
What I have found is that most of my reading has been in the social sciences, where theming has been discussed meaningfully and extensively. This information, put into proper context, will allow me to conduct my field research into the visual vocabulary of theming as a design language and movement.