Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context

Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context
Title Twentieth-Century and Contemporary American Literature in Context PDF eBook
Author Linda De Roche
Publisher
Pages
Release 2021-03
Genre
ISBN 9781440853609

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Ghetto Images in Twentieth-Century American Literature

Ghetto Images in Twentieth-Century American Literature
Title Ghetto Images in Twentieth-Century American Literature PDF eBook
Author Tyrone R. Simpson II
Publisher Springer
Pages 308
Release 2012-01-30
Genre Social Science
ISBN 113701489X

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This book explores how six American writers have artistically responded to the racialization of U.S. frostbelt cities in the twentieth century. Using the critical tools of spatial theory, critical race theory, urban history and sociology, Simpson explains how these writers imagine the subjective response to the race-making power of space.

20th Century American Literature

20th Century American Literature
Title 20th Century American Literature PDF eBook
Author Andrew Blades
Publisher York Notes Companions
Pages 0
Release 2011
Genre American literature
ISBN 9781408266649

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Twentieth-Century Sentimentalism

Twentieth-Century Sentimentalism
Title Twentieth-Century Sentimentalism PDF eBook
Author Jennifer A. Williamson
Publisher Rutgers University Press
Pages 246
Release 2013-12-15
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 0813562996

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Today’s critical establishment assumes that sentimentalism is an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literary mode that all but disappeared by the twentieth century. In this book, Jennifer Williamson argues that sentimentalism is alive and well in the modern era. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of “feeling right” in order to promote a proletarian or humanist ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery and cultural definitions of African American families, she explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental clichés and ideals. Williamson covers new ground by examining authors who are not generally read for their sentimental narrative practices, considering the proletarian novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, and John Steinbeck alongside neo-slave narratives written by Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison. Through careful close readings, Williamson argues that the appropriation of sentimental modes enables both sympathetic thought and systemic action in the proletarian and neo-slave novels under discussion. She contrasts appropriations that facilitate such cultural work with those that do not, including Kathryn Stockett’s novel and film The Help. The book outlines how sentimentalism remains a viable and important means of promoting social justice while simultaneously recognizing and exploring how sentimentality can further white privilege. Sentimentalism is not only alive in the twentieth century. It is a flourishing rhetorical practice among a range of twentieth-century authors who use sentimental tactics in order to appeal to their readers about a range of social justice issues. This book demonstrates that at stake in their appeals is who is inside and outside of the American family and nation.

American Culture, American Tastes

American Culture, American Tastes
Title American Culture, American Tastes PDF eBook
Author Michael Kammen
Publisher Knopf
Pages 300
Release 2012-10-03
Genre Social Science
ISBN 0307827712

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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.

Images of Women in 20th-Century American Literature and Culture

Images of Women in 20th-Century American Literature and Culture
Title Images of Women in 20th-Century American Literature and Culture PDF eBook
Author Janina Corda
Publisher
Pages 120
Release 2015-12-09
Genre
ISBN 9783828836808

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The Facts on File Companion to 20th-century American Poetry

The Facts on File Companion to 20th-century American Poetry
Title The Facts on File Companion to 20th-century American Poetry PDF eBook
Author Burt Kimmelman
Publisher
Pages 572
Release 2005-01-01
Genre Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN 9780816046980

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Includes more than six hundred A-to-Z entries which provide concise information on particular poems, poets, and subjects which have contributed to this literary form.