Author: Gavin Jones
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831911
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Social anxiety about poverty surfaces with startling frequency in American literature. Yet, as Gavin Jones argues, poverty has been denied its due as a critical and ideological framework in its own right, despite recent interest in representations of the lower classes and the marginalized. These insights lay the groundwork for American Hungers, in which Jones uncovers a complex and controversial discourse on the poor that stretches from the antebellum era through the Depression. Reading writers such as Herman Melville, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, James Agee, and Richard Wright in their historical contexts, Jones explores why they succeeded where literary critics have fallen short. These authors acknowledged a poverty that was as aesthetically and culturally significant as it was socially and materially real. They confronted the ideological dilemmas of approaching poverty while giving language to the marginalized poor--the beggars, tramps, sharecroppers, and factory workers who form a persistent segment of American society. Far from peripheral, poverty emerges at the center of national debates about social justice, citizenship, and minority identity. And literature becomes a crucial tool to understand an economic and cultural condition that is at once urgent and elusive because it cuts across the categories of race, gender, and class by which we conventionally understand social difference. Combining social theory with literary analysis, American Hungers masterfully brings poverty into the mainstream critical idiom.
American Hungers
Author: Gavin Jones
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831911
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Social anxiety about poverty surfaces with startling frequency in American literature. Yet, as Gavin Jones argues, poverty has been denied its due as a critical and ideological framework in its own right, despite recent interest in representations of the lower classes and the marginalized. These insights lay the groundwork for American Hungers, in which Jones uncovers a complex and controversial discourse on the poor that stretches from the antebellum era through the Depression. Reading writers such as Herman Melville, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, James Agee, and Richard Wright in their historical contexts, Jones explores why they succeeded where literary critics have fallen short. These authors acknowledged a poverty that was as aesthetically and culturally significant as it was socially and materially real. They confronted the ideological dilemmas of approaching poverty while giving language to the marginalized poor--the beggars, tramps, sharecroppers, and factory workers who form a persistent segment of American society. Far from peripheral, poverty emerges at the center of national debates about social justice, citizenship, and minority identity. And literature becomes a crucial tool to understand an economic and cultural condition that is at once urgent and elusive because it cuts across the categories of race, gender, and class by which we conventionally understand social difference. Combining social theory with literary analysis, American Hungers masterfully brings poverty into the mainstream critical idiom.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831911
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 247
Book Description
Social anxiety about poverty surfaces with startling frequency in American literature. Yet, as Gavin Jones argues, poverty has been denied its due as a critical and ideological framework in its own right, despite recent interest in representations of the lower classes and the marginalized. These insights lay the groundwork for American Hungers, in which Jones uncovers a complex and controversial discourse on the poor that stretches from the antebellum era through the Depression. Reading writers such as Herman Melville, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, James Agee, and Richard Wright in their historical contexts, Jones explores why they succeeded where literary critics have fallen short. These authors acknowledged a poverty that was as aesthetically and culturally significant as it was socially and materially real. They confronted the ideological dilemmas of approaching poverty while giving language to the marginalized poor--the beggars, tramps, sharecroppers, and factory workers who form a persistent segment of American society. Far from peripheral, poverty emerges at the center of national debates about social justice, citizenship, and minority identity. And literature becomes a crucial tool to understand an economic and cultural condition that is at once urgent and elusive because it cuts across the categories of race, gender, and class by which we conventionally understand social difference. Combining social theory with literary analysis, American Hungers masterfully brings poverty into the mainstream critical idiom.
Towards a Theory of Poverty: Rethinking "Race, Gender, Class"; in (American) Cultural Studies. [Gavin Jones, American Hungers: The Problem of Poverty in U.S. Literature, 1840-1945, 2008.]
Global Appetites
Author: Allison Carruth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107328713
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
Global Appetites explores how industrial agriculture and countercultural food movements underpin US conceptions of global power in the century since the First World War. Allison Carruth's study centers on what she terms the 'literature of food' - a body of work that comprises literary realism, late modernism and magical realism along with culinary writing, food memoir and advertising. Through analysis of American texts ranging from Willa Cather's novel O Pioneers! (1913) to Novella Carpenter's non-fiction work Farm City (2009), Carruth argues that stories about how the United States cultivates, distributes and consumes food imbue it with the power to transform social and ecological systems around the world. Lively and accessible, this interdisciplinary study will appeal to scholars of American literature and culture as well as those working in the fields of food studies, food policy, agriculture history, social justice and the environmental humanities.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107328713
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 261
Book Description
Global Appetites explores how industrial agriculture and countercultural food movements underpin US conceptions of global power in the century since the First World War. Allison Carruth's study centers on what she terms the 'literature of food' - a body of work that comprises literary realism, late modernism and magical realism along with culinary writing, food memoir and advertising. Through analysis of American texts ranging from Willa Cather's novel O Pioneers! (1913) to Novella Carpenter's non-fiction work Farm City (2009), Carruth argues that stories about how the United States cultivates, distributes and consumes food imbue it with the power to transform social and ecological systems around the world. Lively and accessible, this interdisciplinary study will appeal to scholars of American literature and culture as well as those working in the fields of food studies, food policy, agriculture history, social justice and the environmental humanities.
Scientific Americans
Author: John Bruni
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1783161353
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Demonstrating the timely relevance of Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Jack London and Henry Adams, this book shows how debates about evolution, identity, and a shifting world picture have uncanny parallels with the emerging global systems that shape our own lives. Tracing these systems' take-off point in the early twentieth century through the lens of popular science journalism, John Bruni makes a valuable contribution to the study of how biopolitical control over life created boundaries among races, classes, genders and species. Rather than accept that these writers get their scientific ideas about evolution second-hand, filtered through a social Darwinist ideology, this study argues that they actively determine what evolution means. Furthermore, the book, examines the ecological concerns that naturalist narratives reflect - such as land and water use, waste management, and environmental pollution - previously unaddressed in a book-length study.
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 1783161353
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266
Book Description
Demonstrating the timely relevance of Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Jack London and Henry Adams, this book shows how debates about evolution, identity, and a shifting world picture have uncanny parallels with the emerging global systems that shape our own lives. Tracing these systems' take-off point in the early twentieth century through the lens of popular science journalism, John Bruni makes a valuable contribution to the study of how biopolitical control over life created boundaries among races, classes, genders and species. Rather than accept that these writers get their scientific ideas about evolution second-hand, filtered through a social Darwinist ideology, this study argues that they actively determine what evolution means. Furthermore, the book, examines the ecological concerns that naturalist narratives reflect - such as land and water use, waste management, and environmental pollution - previously unaddressed in a book-length study.
forum for inter-american research Vol 5
Author: Wilfried Raussert
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3946507816
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
Volume 5 of 6 of the complete premium print version of journal forum for inter-american research (fiar), which is the official electronic journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies (IAS). fiar was established by the American Studies Program at Bielefeld University in 2008. We foster a dialogic and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Americas. fiar is a peer-reviewed online journal. Articles in this journal undergo a double-blind review process and are published in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3946507816
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 538
Book Description
Volume 5 of 6 of the complete premium print version of journal forum for inter-american research (fiar), which is the official electronic journal of the International Association of Inter-American Studies (IAS). fiar was established by the American Studies Program at Bielefeld University in 2008. We foster a dialogic and interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Americas. fiar is a peer-reviewed online journal. Articles in this journal undergo a double-blind review process and are published in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Marginalisation and Utopia in Paul Auster, Jim Jarmusch and Tom Waits
Author: Adriano A. Tedde
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000566331
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
This book explores how three contemporary American artists through the mediums of film, literature and popular music have contributed to the tradition of American progressivism, and provides an invaluable companion to the understanding of complex issues such as inequality and social and economic decline that are apparent in America today. Connecting the works of these artists through a fictional country – the ‘Other America’ – the book shows how they have refuted middle-class values and goals of success, money and social affirmation to unveil the less celebrated, dark side of contemporary America, which, despite the troubles currently faced, never loses hope for a better future. This utopic vision in the face of adversity is explored through the plots, characters and mis-en-scène of Auster and Jarmusch’s work and Waits’s lyrics and sound. This vision challenges the dominant narratives of America as the land of opportunity and values democracy, civic engagement, communitarianism and egalitarianism. Offering an important new perspective to literature on contemporary American culture, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of American studies, film studies, popular music, postmodern literature, cultural studies and sociology.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000566331
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 206
Book Description
This book explores how three contemporary American artists through the mediums of film, literature and popular music have contributed to the tradition of American progressivism, and provides an invaluable companion to the understanding of complex issues such as inequality and social and economic decline that are apparent in America today. Connecting the works of these artists through a fictional country – the ‘Other America’ – the book shows how they have refuted middle-class values and goals of success, money and social affirmation to unveil the less celebrated, dark side of contemporary America, which, despite the troubles currently faced, never loses hope for a better future. This utopic vision in the face of adversity is explored through the plots, characters and mis-en-scène of Auster and Jarmusch’s work and Waits’s lyrics and sound. This vision challenges the dominant narratives of America as the land of opportunity and values democracy, civic engagement, communitarianism and egalitarianism. Offering an important new perspective to literature on contemporary American culture, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of American studies, film studies, popular music, postmodern literature, cultural studies and sociology.
The Routledge Companion to Media and Poverty
Author: Sandra L. Borden
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000387216
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 692
Book Description
Comprehensive and interdisciplinary, this collection explores the complex, and often problematic, ways in which the news media shapes perceptions of poverty. Editor Sandra L. Borden and a diverse collection of scholars and journalists question exactly how the news media can reinforce (or undermine) poverty and privilege. This book is divided into five parts that examine philosophical principles for reporting on poverty, the history and nature of poverty coverage, problematic representations of people experiencing poverty, poverty coverage as part of reporting on public policy and positive possibilities for poverty coverage. Each section provides an introduction to the topic, as well as a broad selection of essays illuminating key issues and a Q&A with a relevant journalist. Topics covered include news coverage of corporate philanthropy, structural bias in reporting, representations of the working poor, the moral demands of vulnerability and agency, community empowerment and citizen media. The book’s broad focus considers media and poverty at both the local and global levels with contributors from 16 countries. This is an ideal reference for students and scholars of media, communication and journalism who are studying topics involving the media and social justice, as well as journalists, activists and policy makers working in these areas.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000387216
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 692
Book Description
Comprehensive and interdisciplinary, this collection explores the complex, and often problematic, ways in which the news media shapes perceptions of poverty. Editor Sandra L. Borden and a diverse collection of scholars and journalists question exactly how the news media can reinforce (or undermine) poverty and privilege. This book is divided into five parts that examine philosophical principles for reporting on poverty, the history and nature of poverty coverage, problematic representations of people experiencing poverty, poverty coverage as part of reporting on public policy and positive possibilities for poverty coverage. Each section provides an introduction to the topic, as well as a broad selection of essays illuminating key issues and a Q&A with a relevant journalist. Topics covered include news coverage of corporate philanthropy, structural bias in reporting, representations of the working poor, the moral demands of vulnerability and agency, community empowerment and citizen media. The book’s broad focus considers media and poverty at both the local and global levels with contributors from 16 countries. This is an ideal reference for students and scholars of media, communication and journalism who are studying topics involving the media and social justice, as well as journalists, activists and policy makers working in these areas.
Narrating Poverty and Precarity in Britain
Author: Barbara Korte
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311036574X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Poverty and precarity have gained a new societal and political presence in the twenty-first century's advanced economies. This is reflected in cultural production, which this book discusses for a wide range of media and genres from the novel to reality television. With a focus on Britain, its chapters divide their attention between current representations of poverty and important earlier narratives that have retained significant relevance today. The book's contributions discuss the representation of social suffering with attention to agencies of enunciation, ethical implications of 'voice' and 'listening', limits of narratability, the pitfalls of sensationalism, voyeurism and sentimentalism, potentials and restrictions inherent in specific representational techniques, modes and genres; cultural markets for poverty and precarity. Overall, the book suggests that analysis of poverty narratives requires an intersection of theoretical reflection and a close reading of texts.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311036574X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Poverty and precarity have gained a new societal and political presence in the twenty-first century's advanced economies. This is reflected in cultural production, which this book discusses for a wide range of media and genres from the novel to reality television. With a focus on Britain, its chapters divide their attention between current representations of poverty and important earlier narratives that have retained significant relevance today. The book's contributions discuss the representation of social suffering with attention to agencies of enunciation, ethical implications of 'voice' and 'listening', limits of narratability, the pitfalls of sensationalism, voyeurism and sentimentalism, potentials and restrictions inherent in specific representational techniques, modes and genres; cultural markets for poverty and precarity. Overall, the book suggests that analysis of poverty narratives requires an intersection of theoretical reflection and a close reading of texts.
Eclipse of Empires
Author: Patricia Jane Roylance
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817313826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
This book analyzes the nineteenth-century American fascination with what the author calls "narratives of imperial eclipse," texts that depict the surpassing of one great civilization by another. The central claim in this book is that historical episodes of imperial eclipse - for example, Incan Peru yielding to Spain, or the Ojibway to the French - heightened the concerns of many American writers about specific intranational social problems plaguing the nation at the time: race, class, gender, religion, and economics.
Publisher: University of Alabama Press
ISBN: 0817313826
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
This book analyzes the nineteenth-century American fascination with what the author calls "narratives of imperial eclipse," texts that depict the surpassing of one great civilization by another. The central claim in this book is that historical episodes of imperial eclipse - for example, Incan Peru yielding to Spain, or the Ojibway to the French - heightened the concerns of many American writers about specific intranational social problems plaguing the nation at the time: race, class, gender, religion, and economics.
The New Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville
Author: Robert S. Levine
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107023130
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
This new collection offers timely, critical essays specially commissioned to provide a comprehensive overview of Melville's career.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107023130
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
This new collection offers timely, critical essays specially commissioned to provide a comprehensive overview of Melville's career.