Satire Or Evasion? PDF Download

Author: James S. Leonard
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 9780822311744
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Ranging from the laudatory to the openly hostile, 15 essays by prominent African American scholars and critics examine the novel's racist elements and assess the degree to which Twain's ironies succeed or fail to turn those elements into a satirical attack on racism. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Author: James S. Leonard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
A collection of articles on Twain's work expressing a broad range of critical perspectives and pedagogical methods, intended to address race, gender and class issues in the classroom.

Author: Cornel West
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299119637
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Taking Emerson as his starting point, Cornel West’s basic task in this ambitious enterprise is to chart the emergence, development, decline, and recent resurgence of American pragmatism. John Dewey is the central figure in West’s pantheon of pragmatists, but he treats as well such varied mid-century representatives of the tradition as Sidney Hook, C. Wright Mills, W. E. B. Du Bois, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Lionel Trilling. West’s "genealogy" is, ultimately, a very personal work, for it is imbued throughout with the author’s conviction that a thorough reexamination of American pragmatism may help inspire and instruct contemporary efforts to remake and reform American society and culture. "West . . . may well be the pre-eminent African American intellectual of our generation."—The Nation "The American Evasion of Philosophy is a highly intelligent and provocative book. Cornel West gives us illuminating readings of the political thought of Emerson and James; provides a penetrating critical assessment of Dewey, his central figure; and offers a brilliant interpretation—appreciative yet far from uncritical—of the contemporary philosopher and neo-pragmatist Richard Rorty. . . . What shines through, throughout the work, is West's firm commitment to a radical vision of a philosophic discourse as inextricably linked to cultural criticism and political engagement."—Paul S. Boyer, professor emeritus of history, University of Wisconsin–Madison. Wisconsin Project on American Writers Frank Lentricchia, General Editor

Author: Sharon Rush
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742545205
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Huck Finn's 'Hidden' Lessons questions the educational suitability of 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' in the classroom. The author argues that the book teaches misguided lessons about race relations. Huck Finn's 'Hidden' Lessons challenges the more typical understanding of Huck Finn and guides readers through an analysis that demonstrates how racism functions in the book and the classroom.

Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 9788174760159
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
In Its Distrust Of Too Much Civilisation And Its Concern With The Way Language Turns Dreamy And Corrupt When Divorced From The Real Condition Of Life, Huckleberry Finn Echoed Some Of The Central Concerns Of Life Today. Like All Great Works Of Fiction Where No Story Is Told As If It Is The Only One, Huck Finn Is Open-Ended, The 'Unfinished Story' Where The True Meaning Is Left To The Conscience And Imagination Of Each Reader.

Author: Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199729069
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Mark Twain (born Samuel Clemens), a former printer's apprentice, journalist, steamboat pilot, and miner, remains to this day one of the most enduring and beloved of America's great writers. Combining cultural criticism with historical scholarship, A Historical Guide to Mark Twain addresses a wide range of topics relevant to Twain's work, including religion, commerce, race, gender, social class, and imperialism. Like all of the Historical Guides to American Authors, this volume includes an introduction, a brief biography, a bibliographic essay, and an illustrated chronology of the author's life and times.

Author: Jim Greenfield
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780991057702
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Used car dealer Sam Samson never backs down from a fight, whether it's against an irate customer like Pete Not-So-Happy, an American Indian who's as big as Hulk Hogan, or against the IRS, which is even bigger than Hulk Hogan. When IRS Special Agent Elliott Mess, who looks like Robert Stack as Eliott Ness in "The Untouchables," steals Samson's money, they get into an altercation. At his trial for tax evasion, and assaulting an IRS agent, Samson is asked why he filed no tax returns for 17 years. He says he forgot. The jury buys this argument, but Mess rigs the trial. Samson decides he ain't gonna take it anymore. He declares war against the United States government. Guess who wins.

Author: Forrest G. Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521445931
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The Cambridge Companion to Mark Twain offers new and thought provoking essays on an author of enduring pre-eminence in the American canon. The book is a collaborative project, assembled by scholars who have played crucial roles in the recent explosion of Twain criticism. Accessible enough to interest both experienced specialists and students new to Twain criticism, the essays examine Twain from a wide variety of critical perspectives, and include timely reflections by major critics on the hotly debated dynamics of race and slavery perceptible throughout his writing. The volume includes a chronology of Twain's life and a list of suggestions for further reading, to provide the students or general reader with sources for background as well as additional information.

Author: Claudia Durst Johnson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313090378
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Since the time of its publication in 1884, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has generated heated controversy. One of the most frequently banned books in the history of literature, it raises issues of race relations, censorship, civil disobedience, and adolescent group psychology as relevant today as they were in the 1880s. This collection of historical documents, collateral readings, and commentary captures the stormy character of the slave-holding frontier on the eve of war and highlights the legacy of past conflicts in contemporary society. Among the source materials presented are: memoirs of fugitive slaves, a river gambler, a gunman, and Mississippi Valley settlers; the Southern Code of Honor; rules of dueling; and an interview with a 1990s gang member. These materials will promote interdisciplinary study of the novel and enrich the student's understanding of the issues raised. The work begins with a literary analysis of the novel's structure, language, and major themes and examines its censorship history, including recent cases linked to questions of race and language. A chapter on censorship and race offers a variety of opposing contemporary views on these issues as depicted in the novel. The memoirs in the chapter Mark Twain's Mississippi Valley illuminate the novel's pastoral view of nature in conflict with a violent civilization resting on the institution of slavery and shaped by the genteel code of honor. Slavery, Its Legacy, and Huck Finn features 19th-century pro-slavery arguments, firsthand accounts of slavery, the text of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and opposing views on civil disobedience from such 19th- and 20th-century Americans as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Stephen A. Douglas, and William Sloane Coffin. Nineteenth-century commentators on the Southern Code of Honor and Twain's sentimental cultural satire directly relate the novel to the social and cultural milieu in which it was written. Each chapter closes with study questions, student project ideas, and sources for further reading on the topic. This is an ideal companion for teacher use and student research in English and American history courses.

Author: Evan R. Davis
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 1603293817
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
This volume addresses the teaching of satire written in English over the past three hundred years. For instructors covering current satire, it suggests ways to enrich students' understanding of voice, irony, and rhetoric and to explore the questions of how to define satire and how to determine what its ultimate aims are. For instructors teaching older satire, it demonstrates ways to help students gain knowledge of historical context, medium, and audience, while addressing more specific literary questions of technique and form. Readers will discover ways to introduce students to authors such as Swift and Twain, to techniques such as parody and verbal irony, and to the difficult subject of satire's offensiveness and elitism. This volume also helps teachers of a wide variety of courses, from composition to gateway courses and surveys, think about how to use modern satire in conceiving and structuring them.