Download or read book Dreiser and Veblen Saboteurs of the Status Quo written by Clare Virginia Eby and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The works of Dreiser and Veblen make up a neglected chapter in the history of United States cultural criticism. Their central subjects (such as the myriad effects of consumer capitalism and the invidious status system) still preoccupy cultural critics, and with good reason. Veblen and Dreiser also pioneered strategies for positioning themselves as confrontational intellectuals (such as by attacking foundationalism and claims of epistemological certainty) that continue to inform the practice of many cultural critics. Thus, in both subject matter and rhetorical strategy, Dreiser’s and Veblen’s writings provide prototypes for the work that many United States scholars want to do now, work which often turns to European or postmodern theory for inspiration. In making this claim about the usefulness of Dreiser and Veblen for current intellectual work, my argument parallels recent rehabilitations of American thinkers.

Download or read book Veblen written by Charles Camic and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold new biography of the thinker who demolished accepted economic theories in order to expose how people of economic and social privilege plunder their wealth from society’s productive men and women. Thorstein Veblen was one of America’s most penetrating analysts of modern capitalist society. But he was not, as is widely assumed, an outsider to the social world he acidly described. Veblen overturns the long-accepted view that Veblen’s ideas, including his insights about conspicuous consumption and the leisure class, derived from his position as a social outsider. In the hinterlands of America’s Midwest, Veblen’s schooling coincided with the late nineteenth-century revolution in higher education that occurred under the patronage of the titans of the new industrial age. The resulting educational opportunities carried Veblen from local Carleton College to centers of scholarship at Johns Hopkins, Yale, Cornell, and the University of Chicago, where he studied with leading philosophers, historians, and economists. Afterward, he joined the nation’s academic elite as a professional economist, producing his seminal books The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of Business Enterprise. Until late in his career, Veblen was, Charles Camic argues, the consummate academic insider, engaged in debates about wealth distribution raging in the field of economics. Veblen demonstrates how Veblen’s education and subsequent involvement in those debates gave rise to his original ideas about the social institutions that enable wealthy Americans—a swarm of economically unproductive “parasites”—to amass vast fortunes on the backs of productive men and women. Today, when great wealth inequalities again command national attention, Camic helps us understand the historical roots and continuing reach of Veblen’s searing analysis of this “sclerosis of the American soul.”

Download or read book The Representation of Veblen s Concepts from the Theory of the Leisure Class in Dreisers Sister Carrie written by Oliver Steinert-Lieschied and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2010-03 with total page 69 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,2, University of Göttingen, language: English, abstract: With his "Theory of the Leisure Class" (1899), which is nowadays considered one of his most popular works, Veblen made himself a social outsider because his criticism of society was harsh and provoking. Although he accepted utilitarianism and praised the industrial efficiency of the engineering professions, he rejected what Mills calls the American value of the "heraldry of the greenback" and the "pecuniary fanatism of the business chieftain". Still his work was widely read and many of the problems which he saw in contemporary American society are even nowadays still quite relevant. Dreiser's first successful novel "Sister Carrie" was written in 1900, only one year after Veblen's main work had been published. This fact, as well as the widespread interest in Veblen's theories throughout America may have influenced Dreiser at least indirectly. More important though, is whether there is some textual evidence to prove their agreements and disagreements concerning their critique of society. In contrast to Veblen, Dreiser did not have a solid educational background and was in fact "almost a generation behind the sweep of American intellectual life" (Noble, "Dreiser and Veblen and the Literature of Cultural Change"), so many of his explanations of human hehaviour were made in terms of "chemisms" (Noble 149). Dreiser at times tended to believe Spencer's theories of social-Darwinism and that man was not much more than a "machine" and mainly controlled by physical laws, while Veblen had rather moved beyond such notions (Noble 149). On a deeper level though, Noble considers the supposedly post-Spencerian Veblen to have unconsciously clinged to Spencer's belief in optimistic progressivism, while Dreiser had in fact transcended such notions and raised some doubts about the belief in inevitable and controlled progress in his works (Nobl

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Theodore Dreiser written by Leonard Cassuto and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-02-12 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The specially commissioned essays collected in this volume establish new parameters for both scholarly and classroom discussion of Dreiser. This Companion provides fresh perspectives on the frequently read classics, Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, as well as on topics of perennial interest, such as Dreiser's representation of the city and his prose style. The volume investigates topics such as his representation of masculinity and femininity, and his treatment of ethnicity. It is the most comprehensive introduction to Dreiser's work available.

Download or read book Thorstein Veblen written by Erik S. Reinert and published by Anthem Press. This book was released on 2014-10-01 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After his death Thorstein Veblen was hailed as ‘America’s Darwin and Marx’ and is normally portrayed as the perennial iconoclast. He severely criticised traditional economics and attempted to create an alternative approach based on a much more complex view of human beings. He is one of the most celebrated economists of our age and has been the inspiration for many books; the predatory version of capitalism we now again experience, the phenomenon of studying cultures of consumption and the darker sides of gilded ages can be traced back to Veblen. A conference in Veblen’s ancestral Norway marked the 150th anniversary of his birth. The aim of the conference was to consolidate Veblen scholarship and evaluate his relevance for the problems of today. This collection offers the results of that endeavour; it is a milestone of Vebleniana which assesses all the most salient aspects of his life and influence. Many of its contributors also push into uncharted territory, examining the man and his work from new and necessary perspectives hitherto ignored by scholarship.

Download or read book A Theodore Dreiser Encyclopedia written by Keith Newlin and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-07-30 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For a century, Theodore Dreiser has represented for many readers a rebellious modernism whose novels both critiqued the American dream and embodied a bleakly deterministic perception of life. His first novel, Sister Carrie (1900), was reluctantly published and then ignored by its publisher, who thought the book immoral. Another publisher withdrew his fifth novel, The Genius (1915), rather than face prosecution on obscenity charges. Dreiser did not enjoy widespread popularity and critical acclaim until his masterpiece, An American Tragedy, appeared in 1925. This reference is an authoritative guide to his life and works. Included are several hundred entries on each of Dreiser's books and short stories, as well as magazine and newspaper pieces he collected during his life. Noteworthy uncollected and posthumously collected works are given separate entries, as are major characters in the novels, family members, friends, and other persons important to understanding his writings. There are also entries on Dreiser's publishers, his major influences, the places and events important to his life, and the literary and social contexts of his works. Expert contributors wrote each of the entries, many of which cite works for further reading. The volume closes with a selected bibliography of works by and about Dreiser.

Download or read book Veblen in Perspective written by Stephen Edgell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work discusses the impact and contemporary relevance of the work of Thorstein Veblen, as well as the source of his ideas. It suggests that he was one of the first modern sociologists of consumption whose analysis of contemporary display and fashion anticipated later theories and research.

Download or read book Upward Mobility and the Common Good written by Bruce Robbins and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-12-21 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We think we know what upward mobility stories are about--virtuous striving justly rewarded, or unprincipled social climbing regrettably unpunished. Either way, these stories seem obviously concerned with the self-making of self-reliant individuals rather than with any collective interest. In Upward Mobility and the Common Good, Bruce Robbins completely overturns these assumptions to expose a hidden tradition of erotic social interdependence at the heart of the literary canon. Reinterpreting novels by figures such as Balzac, Stendhal, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Dreiser, Wells, Doctorow, and Ishiguro, along with a number of films, Robbins shows how deeply the material and erotic desires of upwardly mobile characters are intertwined with the aid they receive from some sort of benefactor or mentor. In his view, Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs becomes a key figure of social mobility in our time. Robbins argues that passionate and ambiguous relationships (like that between Lecter and Clarice Starling) carry the upward mobility story far from anyone's simple self-interest, whether the protagonist's or the mentor's. Robbins concludes that upward mobility stories have paradoxically helped American and European society make the transition from an ethic of individual responsibility to one of collective accountability, a shift that made the welfare state possible, but that also helps account for society's fascination with cases of sexual abuse and harassment by figures of authority.

Download or read book The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen written by Sidney Plotkin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-06 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thorstein Veblen is best known for his authorship of The Theory of the Leisure Class and The Theory of Business Enterprise, which made him a celebrated figure in the fields of economics and sociology at the turn of the twentieth century. In this book, Sidney Plotkin and Rick Tilman argue that in addition to his well-known work in these fields Veblen also made important—and until now overlooked—statements about politics. While Veblen's writings seldom mention politics, they are saturated with political ideas: about the relationship among war, executive power, and democracy; about the similarities between modern executive positions and monarchy; about the political influence of corporate power; about the symbolism of politics; and about many other issues. By demonstrating the deep relevance of Veblen's writings to today's political troubles, The Political Ideas of Thorstein Veblen offers an important reconsideration of a major American thinker.

Download or read book Veblen And Modern America written by Michael Spindler and published by Pluto Press. This book was released on 2002-05-20 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: EvaluatesVeblen not just as an economist or a sociologist but as a seminal critic of modern American culture.

Download or read book New Seeds of Profit written by Mark S. Ferrara and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-04-19 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Captain Christopher Newport and his crew landed on the muddy banks of the James River in 1607, after four months at sea, they aimed to establish a new colony not for God, or the greater good of humanity—but for the sake of profit. The Pilgrims who settled in Cape Cod in 1620 as agents of Plymouth Company found evidence of divine election in the fortunes they accumulated from a lucrative system of town-founding in the New World. The innovative and often ruthless entrepreneurs who followed these colonists carved out the immense North American frontier wilderness from the Atlantic Ocean to the golden sands of the California coast, and they forged industrial and technological revolutions that shook the world. New Seeds of Profit examines the role of business leaders, from George Washington to Donald Trump, in shaping the United States into a business nation unlike any other in world history. By tracing the influence of industry and commerce on American society through portraits of successful entrepreneurs, this book sheds light on the esteemed place Americans reserve for their wealthiest business leaders—and it measures the true cost of that adulation by demonstrating how enterprise driven solely by the bottom line imperils people and the environment. In a story teeming with the heroes and villains of enterprise, New Seeds of Profit offers an innovative business model that provides meaningful work to employees and socially responsible returns to investors, while encouraging sustainable stewardship of the earth and advancing the common good.

Download or read book Between Profits and Primitivism written by Athena Devlin and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1800 and the First World War, white middle-class men were depicted various forms of literature as weak and nervous. This book explores cultural writings dedicated to the physical and mental health of the male subject, showing that men have mobilized gender constructions repeatedly and self-consciously to position themselves within the culture. Aiming to join those who offer nuanced accounts of masculinity, Devlin investigates the various and changing interests white manhood was positioned to cultivate and the ways elite white men used "their own," so to speak, to promote larger agendas for their class and race.

Download or read book Barbarian Architecture written by Joanna Merwood-Salisbury and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly visual architectural history and theory of modernity that reexamines Thorstein Veblen’s classic text The Theory of the Leisure Class through the lens of Chicago in the 1890s. An important critic of modern culture, American economist Thorstein Veblen is best known for the concept of “conspicuous consumption,” the ostentatious and wasteful display of goods in the service of social status—a term he coined in his 1899 classic The Theory of the Leisure Class. In the field of architectural history, scholars have employed Veblen in support of a wide range of arguments about modern architecture, but never has he attracted a comprehensive and critical treatment from the viewpoint of architectural history. In Barbarian Architecture, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury corrects this omission by reexamining Veblen’s famous book as an original theory of modernity and situating it in a particular place and time—Chicago in the 1890s. Merwood-Salisbury takes her title from Veblen’s use of the term “barbarian,” which refers to his belief that Gilded Age American society was a last remnant of a barbarian state of greed and acquisitiveness. Taking an interdisciplinary approach that draws on biography, intellectual history, and historiography, she explores Veblen’s position in relation to debates about industrial reform and aesthetics in Chicago during the period 1890–1906. Bolstered by a strong visual narrative made possible by several of Chicago’s historic photographic collections, Barbarian Architecture makes a compelling and original argument for the influence of Veblen’s home city on his work and ideas.

Download or read book Transnationalism in Practice written by Paul Giles and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transnationalism in Practice brings together fourteen essays written by Paul Giles between 1994 and 2009 on the subjects of American studies, literature and religion. In an introduction written especially for the collection, Giles traces the evolution of critical transnationalism as it developed through the 1980s and 1990s. The volume includes "e;Reconstructing American Studies"e; (1994), one of the first articles to address the field from a transnational perspective, along with other pieces on methodological and practical issues surrounding the internationalization of American studies. The essays on American literature contain work on Theodore Dreiser, Henry James and the critic F. O. Matthiessen, along with a new study of Jamaica Kincaid in relation to postcolonialism. The section on religion traces the circulation of secularized forms of Catholicism in U.S. culture, from nineteenth-century slave narratives to the musical performances of Bruce Springsteen. Transnationalism in Practice ranges widely, from the culture of colonial America to the novels of Robert Coover and Kathy Acker, while also encompassing a broad range of interdisciplinary topics, from the presidency of George W. Bush to the role of religion in American society. This book will be of interest to all of those concerned with the place of U.S. culture in the world today.

Download or read book The Last Titan written by Jerome Loving and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005-03 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dreiser was a controversial figure in his time, not only because of his literary efforts, which included publication of the brutal and heartbreaking An American Tragedy in 1925, but also because of his personal life, which featured numerous sexual liaisons, included membership in the communist party, merited a 180-page FBI file, and ended in Hollywood. The Last Titan paints a full portrait of the mature Dreiser between the two world wars - through the roaring twenties, the stock market crash, and the Depression - and describes his contact with important figures, from Emma Goldman and H.L. Mencken to two presidents Roosevelt. Tracing Dreiser's literary roots to Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and especially Whitman, Loving adds a dimension to the writer's thought that has not been fully explored, and reshapes our understanding of his tremendous contribution to American literature in what will surely become the standard biography of one of America's best novelists."--BOOK JACKET.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of the American Novel written by Abby H. P. Werlock and published by Infobase Learning. This book was released on 2015-04-22 with total page 3854 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Praise for the print edition:" ... no other reference work on American fiction brings together such an array of authors and texts as this.

Download or read book Echoes of Insight written by Patrick Allen and published by ACU Press. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christian higher education needs something richer and deeper. Faith-based institutions yearn for more than business as usual, and Echoes of Insight invites you to listen again to older, forgotten, and perhaps even ignored voices. Designed to stimulate conversation among colleagues, Echoes of Insight offers brief summaries of several thought-provoking writers from the last century and encourages a new, vigorous conversation about Christian higher education. •Alfred North Whitehead •John Henry Newman •Dorothy Sayers •Abraham Flexner •Hannah Arendt •Thorstein Veblen •Flannery O’Connor •José Ortega y Gasset •Maria Montessori •Robert Maynard Hutchins •Karl Jaspers