Hunter examines the marginalised verbal arts, written and spoken texts that don't fit the conventional patterns, such as e-mail, letters, diaries, writing and speaking from the Black diaspora, women's writing and electronic texts.

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, , course: Literary citicism, language: English, abstract: In a way or another, literature underlies subtle discursive processes that either inform the text with a power regime or contest it through a disruptive counter-discourse. Taking part in circulating power-laden cultural values legitimating or countering the status- quo, literature has been a fertile ground for different currents of critical and cultural studies such as postcolonial, feminist and literary theory. In this context, the argument of this paper investigates through examples of different literary genres how literature has always been amid a tug of war either endorsing hegemonic power representations or taking a position of resistance.

This is a book about one of the great untold stories of modern cultural life: the remarkable ascendancy of prizes in literature and the arts. Such prizes and the competitions they crown are almost as old as the arts themselves, but their number and power--and their consequences for society and culture at large--have expanded to an unprecedented degree in our day. In a wide-ranging overview of this phenomenon, James F. English documents the dramatic rise of the awards industry and its complex role within what he describes as an economy of cultural prestige. Observing that cultural prizes in their modern form originate at the turn of the twentieth century with the institutional convergence of art and competitive spectator sports, English argues that they have in recent decades undergone an important shift--a more genuine and far-reaching globalization than what has occurred in the economy of material goods. Focusing on the cultural prize in its contemporary form, his book addresses itself broadly to the economic dimensions of culture, to the rules or logic of exchange in the market for what has come to be called "cultural capital." In the wild proliferation of prizes, English finds a key to transformations in the cultural field as a whole. And in the specific workings of prizes, their elaborate mechanics of nomination and election, presentation and acceptance, sponsorship, publicity, and scandal, he uncovers evidence of the new arrangements and relationships that have refigured that field.

Meritocracy today involves the idea that whatever your social position at birth, society ought to offer enough opportunity and mobility for ‘talent’ to combine with ‘effort’ in order to ‘rise to the top’. This idea is one of the most prevalent social and cultural tropes of our time, as palpable in the speeches of politicians as in popular culture. In this book Jo Littler argues that meritocracy is the key cultural means of legitimation for contemporary neoliberal culture – and that whilst it promises opportunity, it in fact creates new forms of social division. Against Meritocracy is split into two parts. Part I explores the genealogies of meritocracy within social theory, political discourse and working cultures. It traces the dramatic U-turn in meritocracy’s meaning, from socialist slur to a contemporary ideal of how a society should be organised. Part II uses a series of case studies to analyse the cultural pull of popular ‘parables of progress’, from reality TV to the super-rich and celebrity CEOs, from social media controversies to the rise of the ‘mumpreneur’. Paying special attention to the role of gender, ‘race’ and class, this book provides new conceptualisations of the meaning of meritocracy in contemporary culture and society.

"Robert Scholes has written an enviable book on the uses and abuses of literary theory in the teaching of literature. One of [his] most forceful points...is that 'literary theory' is not something a teacher may either 'use' or not use, for teaching itself is an unavoidably theoretical activity."--Gerald Graff, Novel "Scholes' emphasis in Textual Power is indicated by the book's subtitle. After a provocative analysis of disciplinary values and departmental tendencies...[he] proposes that 'we must stop "teaching literature" and start studying texts'...His book is essential for college libraries."--R.C. Gebhardt, Choice "There is no issue more current, more relevant to the present scene, than the problem of pedagogy and its relation to contemporary theory. Textual Power is an important, provocative, and above all useful contribution to this discussion."--Gregory L. Ulmer Robert Scholes, author of Structuralism in Literature and Semiotics and Interpretation among other books, is Alumni-Alumnae University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Brown University.

This book examines the social codes and practices that shape the literary culture of a combined fifth/sixth-grade classroom. It considers how the social and cultural contexts of classroom and community affect four classroom practices involving literature--read aloud, peer-led literature discussions, teacher-led literature discussions, and independent reading--with a focus on how these practices are shaped by discourse and rituals within the classroom and by social codes and cultural norms beyond the classroom. This book's emphasis on intermediate students is particularly important, given the dearth of studies in the field of reading education that focus on readers at the edge of adolescence.

This expansive Companion offers a set of fresh perspectives on the wealth of texts produced in and around what is now the United States. Highlights the diverse voices that constitute American literature, embracing oral traditions, slave narratives, regional writing, literature of the environment, and more Demonstrates that American literature was multicultural before Europeans arrived on the continent, and even more so thereafter Offers three distinct paradigms for thinking about American literature, focusing on: genealogies of American literary study; writers and issues; and contemporary theories and practices Enables students and researchers to generate richer, more varied and more comprehensive readings of American literature