Download or read book American Literature and Social Change written by Michael Spindler and published by Springer. This book was released on 1983-06-18 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book American Culture American Tastes written by Michael Kammen and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-10-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans have a long history of public arguments about taste, the uses of leisure, and what is culturally appropriate in a democracy that has a strong work ethic. Michael Kammen surveys these debates as well as our changing taste preferences, especially in the past century, and the shifting perceptions that have accompanied them. Professor Kammen shows how the post-traditional popular culture that flourished after the 1880s became full-blown mass culture after World War II, in an era of unprecedented affluence and travel. He charts the influence of advertising and opinion polling; the development of standardized products, shopping centers, and mass-marketing; the separation of youth and adult culture; the gradual repudiation of the genteel tradition; and the commercialization of organized entertainment. He stresses the significance of television in the shaping of mass culture, and of consumerism in its reconfiguration over the past two decades. Focusing on our own time, Kammen discusses the use of the fluid nature of cultural taste to enlarge audiences and increase revenues, and reveals how the public role of intellectuals and cultural critics has declined as the power of corporate sponsors and promoters has risen. As a result of this diminution of cultural authority, he says, definitive pronouncements have been replaced by divergent points of view, and there is, as well, a tendency to blur fact and fiction, reality and illusion. An important commentary on the often conflicting ways Americans have understood, defined, and talked about their changing culture in the twentieth century.
Download or read book The Chronology of American Literature written by Daniel S. Burt and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2004 with total page 824 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you are looking to brush up on your literary knowledge, check a favorite author's work, or see a year's bestsellers at a glance, The Chronology of American Literature is the perfect resource. At once an authoritative reference and an ideal browser's guide, this book outlines the indispensable information in America's rich literary past--from major publications to lesser-known gems--while also identifying larger trends along the literary timeline. Who wrote the first published book in America? When did Edgar Allan Poe achieve notoriety as a mystery writer? What was Hemingway's breakout title? With more than 8,000 works by 5,000 authors, The Chronology makes it easy to find answers to these questions and more. Authors and their works are grouped within each year by category: fiction and nonfiction; poems; drama; literary criticism; and publishing events. Short, concise entries describe an author's major works for a particular year while placing them within the larger context of that writer's career. The result is a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of some of America's most prominent writers. Perhaps most important, The Chronology offers an invaluable line through our literary past, tying literature to the American experience--war and peace, boom and bust, and reaction to social change. You'll find everything here from Benjamin Franklin's "Experiments and Observations on Electricity," to Davy Crockett's first memoir; from Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" to Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome; from meditations by James Weldon Johnson and James Agee to poetry by Elizabeth Bishop. Also included here are seminal works by authors such as Rachel Carson, Toni Morrison, John Updike, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Lavishly illustrated--and rounded out with handy bestseller lists throughout the twentieth century, lists of literary awards and prizes, and authors' birth and death dates--The Chronology of American Literature belongs on the shelf of every bibliophile and literary enthusiast. It is the essential link to our literary past and present.
Download or read book Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change written by Lauran R. Hartley and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-16 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change is the first systematic and detailed overview of modern Tibetan literature, which has burgeoned only in the last thirty years. This comprehensive collection brings together fourteen pioneering scholars in the nascent field of Tibetan literary studies, including authors who are active in the Tibetan literary world itself. These scholars examine the literary output of Tibetan authors writing in Tibetan, Chinese, and English, both in Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora. The contributors explore the circumstances that led to the development of modern Tibetan literature, its continuities and breaks with classical Tibetan literary forms, and the ways that writers use forms such as magical realism, satire, and humor to negotiate literary freedom within the People’s Republic of China. They provide crucial information about Tibetan writers’ lives in China and abroad, the social and political contexts in which they write, and the literary merits of their oeuvre. Along with deep social, cultural, and political analysis, this wealth of information clarifies the complex circumstances that Tibetan writers face in the PRC and the diaspora. The contributors consider not only poetry, short stories, and novels but also other forms of cultural production—such as literary magazines, films, and Web sites—that provide a public forum in the Tibetan areas of the PRC, where censorship and restrictions on public gatherings remain the norm. Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change includes a previously unavailable list of modern Tibetan works translated into Western languages and a comprehensive English-language index of names, subjects, and terms. Contributors: Pema Bhum, Howard Y. F. Choy, Yangdon Dhondup, Lauran R. Hartley, Hortsang Jigme, Matthew T. Kapstein, Nancy G. Lin, Lara Maconi, Françoise Robin, Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani, Ronald D. Schwartz, Tsering Shakya, Sangye Gyatso (aka Gangzhün), Steven J. Venturino, Riika Virtanen
Download or read book What You Have Heard is True written by Carolyn Forché and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the author's deep friendship with a mysterious intellectual who introduced her to the culture and people of El Salvador in the 1970s, a tumultuous period in the country's history, inspiring her work as an unlikely activist.
Download or read book The Twenty first Century African American Novel and the Critique of Whiteness in Everyday Life written by E. Lâle Demirtürk and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2016-05-25 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the post-9/11 African American novels, developing a new critical discourse on everyday discursive practices of whiteness. The critique of everyday life in the racial context of post-9/11 American society is important in considering diverse forms of the lived experiences and subjectivities of black people in the novels. They help us see that African American representations of the city have political significance in that the “neo-urban novel” explores the possibility of a black dialogic communication to build a transformative social change. Since the real power of Whiteness lies in its discursive power, the book reveals the urgency to understand not only how whiteness works in everyday life in American society. But it also explores how to cultivate new possibilities of configuring and performing Blackness differently, as a response to the post-9/11 configurations of the culture of fear, to produce new ways of interactional social relations that can eventually open up the space of critical awareness for white people to work against rather than reinforce discursive practices of White supremacy in everyday life. This book explores how the multiple subjectivities and transformative acts of blackness can offer ways of subverting the discursive power of the white embodied practices. What defines post-9/11 America as a nation that is consumed by the fear of racialized terrorists is its roots in the fear of (‘uncontrollable’) Blackness as excess and ominous threat in the domestic terrain through which the ideology of White supremacy has constructed for governing through Whiteness. African-American urban novels published in the twenty-first century respond to the discursive power of normative Whiteness that regulates black bodies, selves and lives. This book demonstrates how black people contest white dominant social spaces as sites of black criminality and exclusion in an attempt to re-signify them as the sites of black transformative change through personal and grassroots activism through their performativity of Blackness as an agential identity formation in their interpersonal urban social encounters with white people. Hence, the vulnerable spaces of Whiteness in interracial urban encounters, as it pervasively addresses those moments of transformative change, enacted by Black characters, in the face of the discursive practices of whiteness in the everyday life. These novels celebrate multifarious representations of black individuals, who are capable of using their agency to subvert White discursive power, in finding ways in their personal and grassroots activism to transform the culture of fear that locates Blackness as such in an attempt to make a difference in the American society at large.
Download or read book Reclaiming Nostalgia written by Jennifer K. Ladino and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often thought of as the quintessential home or the Eden from which humanity has fallen, the natural world has long been a popular object of nostalgic narratives. In Reclaiming Nostalgia, Jennifer Ladino assesses the ideological effects of this phenomenon by tracing its dominant forms in American literature and culture since the closing of the frontier in 1890. While referencing nostalgia for pastoral communities and for untamed and often violent frontiers, she also highlights the ways in which nostalgia for nature has served as a mechanism for social change, a model for ethical relationships, and a motivating force for social and environmental justice.
Download or read book American Literature in Transition 2000 2010 written by Rachel Greenwald Smith and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Literature in Transition, 2000–2010 illuminates the dynamic transformations that occurred in American literary culture during the first decade of the twenty-first century. The volume is the first major critical collection to address the literature of the 2000s, a decade that saw dramatic changes in digital technology, economics, world affairs, and environmental awareness. Beginning with an introduction that takes stock of the period's major historical, cultural, and literary movements, the volume features accessible essays on a wide range of topics, including genre fiction, the treatment of social networking in literature, climate change fiction, the ascendency of Amazon and online booksellers, 9/11 literature, finance and literature, and the rise of prestige television. Mapping the literary culture of a decade of promise and threat, American Literature in Transition, 2000–2010 provides an invaluable resource on twenty-first century American literature for general readers, students, and scholars alike.
Download or read book Moses written by Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An unprecedented portrait of Moses's inner world and perplexing character, by a distinguished biblical scholar No figure looms larger in Jewish culture than Moses, and few have stories more enigmatic. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, acclaimed for her many books on Jewish thought, turns her attention to Moses in this remarkably rich, evocative book. Drawing on a broad range of sources—literary as well as psychoanalytic, a wealth of classical Jewish texts alongside George Eliot, W. G. Sebald, and Werner Herzog—Zornberg offers a vivid and original portrait of the biblical Moses. Moses's vexing personality, his uncertain origins, and his turbulent relations with his own people are acutely explored by Zornberg, who sees this story, told and retold, as crucial not only to the biblical past but also to the future of Jewish history.
Download or read book The Final Solution written by David Cesarani and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Final Solution clarifies the key questions surrounding the attempt by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews. Drawing on important new research, these authoritative essays focus on the preconditions and antecedents for the 'Final Solution' and examine the immediate origins of the genocidal decision. Contributors also examine the responses of peoples and governments in Germany, occupied Europe, the USA and among Jews worldwide. The controversial conversions of this study challenge many of our accepted ideas about the period.
Download or read book How Literature Changes the Way We Think written by Michael Mack and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: >
Download or read book Beyond Feminist Aesthetics written by Rita Felski and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Felski presents a critical account of current American and European feminist literary theory, and analyzes contemporary fiction by women to show that no theorist can identify a specifically "female" or "feminine" kind of writing without reference to what gender means at a given historical moment. She argues that the idea of a feminist aesthetic is a non-issue needlessly pursued by feminists. She calls for a consideration of the social and cultural context in which these texts were produced and received, and demonstrates her method of an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of literature which can integrate literary and social theory. ISBN 0-674-06894-7: $25.00; ISBN 0-674-06895-5 (pbk.): $9.95.
Download or read book Empire s Proxy written by Meg Wesling and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2011-04-11 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series In the late nineteenth century, American teachers descended on the Philippines, which had been newly purchased by the U.S. at the end of the Spanish-American War. Motivated by President McKinley’s project of “benevolent assimilation,” they established a school system that centered on English language and American literature to advance the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which was held up as justification for the U.S.’s civilizing mission and offered as a promise of moral uplift and political advancement. Meanwhile, on American soil, the field of American literature was just being developed and fundamentally, though invisibly, defined by this new, extraterritorial expansion. Drawing on a wealth of material, including historical records, governmental documents from the War Department and the Bureau of Insular Affairs, curriculum guides, memoirs of American teachers in the Philippines, and 19th century literature, Meg Wesling not only links empire with education, but also demonstrates that the rearticulation of American literary studies through the imperial occupation in the Philippines served to actually define and strengthen the field. Empire’s Proxy boldly argues that the practical and ideological work of colonial dominance figured into the emergence of the field of American literature, and that the consolidation of a canon of American literature was intertwined with the administrative and intellectual tasks of colonial management.
Download or read book The Politically Incorrect Guide to English And American Literature written by Elizabeth Kantor and published by Regnery Publishing. This book was released on 2006-10-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Citing declining coverage of classic English and American literature in today's schools, a "politically incorrect" primer challenges popular misconceptions while introducing the works of such core masters as Shakespeare, Faulkner, and Austen, in a volume that is complemented by a syllabus and a self-study guide. Original.
Download or read book Brave New Words written by Elizabeth Ammons and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The activist tradition in American literature has long testified to the power of words to change people and the power of people to change the world, yet in recent years many professional humanists have chosen to distract themselves with a postmodern fundamentalism of indeterminacy and instability rather than engage with social and political issues. Throughout her bold and provocative call to action, Elizabeth Ammons argues that the responsibility now facing humanists is urgent: inside and outside academic settings, they need to revive the liberal arts as a progressive cultural force that offers workable ideas and inspiration in the real-world struggle to achieve social and environmental justice. Brave New Words challenges present and future literary scholars and teachers to look beyond mere literary critique toward the concrete issue of social change and how to achieve it. Calling for a profound realignment of thought and spirit in the service of positive social change, Ammons argues for the continued importance of multiculturalism in the twenty-first century despite attacks on the concept from both right and left. Concentrating on activist U.S. writers—from ecocritics to feminists to those dedicated to exposing race and class biases, from Jim Wallis and Cornel West to Winona LaDuke and Paula Moya and many others—she calls for all humanists to link their work to the progressive literature of the last half century, to insist on activism in the service of positive change as part of their mission, and to teach the power of hope and action to their students. As Ammons clearly demonstrates, much of American literature was written to expose injustice and motivate readers to work for social transformation. She challenges today’s academic humanists to address the issues of hope and purpose by creating a practical activist pedagogy that gives students the knowledge to connect their theoretical learning to the outside world. By relying on the transformative power of literature and replacing nihilism and powerlessness with conviction and faith, the liberal arts can offer practical, useful inspiration to everyone seeking to create a better world.
Download or read book Social Criticism and Nineteenth Century American Fictions written by Robert Shulman and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1989 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The changing market society of the nineteenth century had a deep impact on American writers and their works. The writers responded with important insights into the alienation brought on by the country's capitalist development. Shulman uses theorists from Tocqueville to Gramsci and the New Left historians, as well as drawing on other recent historical and critical studies, to examine major nineteenth-century American works as they illuminate and are illuminated by their society. Using works by Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charles Chesnutt, Walt Witman, Edith Wharton, and Theodore Dreiser, he shows the urgency, energy, and variety of response that capitalism elicited from a range of writers.
Download or read book Women and Reform in a New England Community 1815 1860 written by Carolyn J. Lawes and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpretations of women in the antebellum period have long dwelt upon the notion of public versus private gender spheres. As part of the ongoing reevaluation of the prehistory of the women's movement, Carolyn Lawes challenges this paradigm and the primacy of class motivation. She studies the women of antebellum Worcester, Massachusetts, discovering that whatever their economic background, women there publicly worked to remake and improve their community in their own image. Lawes analyzes the organized social activism of the mostly middle-class, urban, white women of Worcester and finds that they were at the center of community life and leadership. Drawing on rich local history collections, Lawes weaves together information from city and state documents, court cases, medical records, church collections, newspapers, and diaries and letters to create a portrait of a group of women for whom constant personal and social change was the norm. Throughout Women and Reform in a New England Community, conventional women make seemingly unconventional choices. A wealthy Worcester matron helped spark a women-led rebellion against ministerial authority in the town's orthodox Calvinist church. Similarly, a close look at the town's sewing circles reveals that they were vehicles for political exchange as well as social gatherings that included men but intentionally restricted them to a subordinate role. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the women of Worcester had taken up explicitly political and social causes, such as an orphan asylum they founded, funded, and directed. Lawes argues that economic and personal instability rather than a desire for social control motivated women, even relatively privileged ones, into social activism. She concludes that the local activism of the women of Worcester stimulated, and was stimulated by, their interest in the first two national women's rights conventions, held in Worcester in 1850 and 1851. Far from being marginalized from the vital economic, social, and political issues of their day, the women of this antebellum New England community insisted upon being active and ongoing participants in the debates and decisions of their society and nation.
