Showing papers in "American Literature in 1992"
TL;DR: In these three lectures, Cavell situates Emerson at an intersection of three crossroads: a place where both philosophy and literature pass; where the two traditions of English and German philosophy shun one another; and where the cultures of America and Europe unsettle one another as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In these three lectures, Cavell situates Emerson at an intersection of three crossroads: a place where both philosophy and literature pass; where the two traditions of English and German philosophy shun one another; where the cultures of America and Europe unsettle one another. "Cavell's 'readings' of Wittgenstein and Heidegger and Emerson and other thinkers surely deepen our understanding of them, but they do much more: they offer a vision of what life can be and what culture can mean...These profound lectures are a wonderful place to make [Cavell's] acquaintance."--Hilary Putnam
381 citations
TL;DR: Andrew Ross as discussed by the authors argues that the making of "taste" is hardly an aesthetic activity, but rather an exercise in cultural power, policing and carefully redefining social relations between classes.
Abstract: The intellectual and the popular: Irving Howe and John Waters, Susan Sontag and Ethel Rosenberg, Dwight MacDonald and Bill Cosby, Amiri Baraka and Mick Jagger, Andrea Dworkin and Grace Jones, Andy Warhol and Lenny Bruce. All feature in Andrew Ross's lively history and critique of modern American culture. Andrew Ross examines how and why the cultural authority of modern intellectuals is bound up with the changing face of popular taste in America. He argues that the making of \"taste\" is hardly an aesthetic activity, but rather an exercise in cultural power, policing and carefully redefining social relations between classes.
374 citations
TL;DR: The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse as discussed by the authors provides a theoretical basis for the movement away from an isolating emphasis on cultural differences toward a shared sense of community in minority cultures.
Abstract: This volume of essays on the new field of "minority discourse" marks a significant departure from traditional criticism. While the institutions of Western humanism have often treated minority cultures as supplements, this book emphasizes work that is theoretically centered in the political experiences of minority cultures themselves. Bringing together the writings of an international group of scholars, this collection creates a new paradigm for critical cultural studies, one that accounts for both the similarities and differences in the experiences of minority and Third World cultures. The Nature and Context of Minority Discourse provides a theoretical basis for the movement away from an isolating emphasis on cultural differences toward a shared sense of community.
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TL;DR: The American female myth "The Awakening" and the American female talent the death of the lady (novelist) were lost generation American female Gothic common threads as mentioned in this paper, and they were not discussed in this paper.
Abstract: American questions Miranda's story "Little Women" - the American female myth "The Awakening" - tradition and the American female talent the death of the lady (novelist) - Wharton's "House of Mirth" the other lost generation American female Gothic common threads
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TL;DR: Breitwieser as mentioned in this paper argues that this narrative undercuts the Puritan values Rowlandson attempted to uphold, pointing out that real experiences were seen as siogns or emblems of moral abstractions.
Abstract: Mary White Rowlandwon, a New England Congregationalist minister's wife, was held captive by the Algonquin Indians during King Philip's War in 1676. Several years after she was ransomed and living among the British again she wrote a narrative of the captivity chronicling her experience in grief, love, resentment, and ethnic trauma. Breitwieser argues that this narrative undercuts the Puritan values Rowlandson attempted to uphold. He reveals where and how Rowlandson breaks with Puritan conventions. He points out that in American Puritan religious practice, real experiences were seen as siogns or emblems of moral abstractions. \"American Puritanism and the Defense of Mourning\" will be essential reading for all who study early American literature and culture.
TL;DR: The authors examined personal accounts as well as novels of the Vietnam War and placed these narratives within the context of important cultural and literary themes, including inherent ironies of war, the "John Wayne syndrome" of pre-war innocence, and the heavy Heart-of-Darkness trip of the conflict itself.
Abstract: The Gulf War and its aftermath have testified once again to the significance placed on the meanings and images of Vietnam by US media and culture. Almost two decades after the end of hostilities, the Vietnam War remains a dominant moral, political and military touchstone in American cultural consciousness. Vietnam War Stories provides a comprehensive critical framework for understanding the Vietnam experience, Vietnam narratives and modern war literature. The narratives examined - personal accounts as well as novels - portray a soldier's and a country's journey from pre-war innocence, through battlefield experience and consideration, to a difficult post-war adjustment. Tobey Herzog places these narratives within the context of important cultural and literary themes, including inherent ironies of war, the "John Wayne syndrome" of pre-war innocence, and the "heavy Heart-of-Darkness trip" of the conflict itself.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the intersection of Rhetoric of Feminism and Abolition in Antebellum America, including the notion of Bodily Bonds, domesticity, and Capitalism in Horatio Alger.
Abstract: Michael Warner, Franklin and the Letters of the Republic Elaine Showalter, The Death of the Lady (Novelist): Wharton's "House of Mirth" Sacvan Bercovitch, Hawthorne's A-Morality of Compromise Philip Fisher, Democratic Social Space: Whitman, Melville, and the Promise of American Transparency Eric Sundquist, Mark Twain and Homer Plessy Richard Brodhead, Sparing the Rod: Discipline and Fiction in Antebellum America Walter Benn Michaels, An American Tragedy, or the Promise of American Life Sharon Cameron, Representing Grief: Emerson's "Experience" Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Bodily Bonds: The Intersecting Rhetorics of Feminism and Abolition Michael Moon, "The Gentle Boy from the Dangerous Classes": Pederasty, Domesticity, and Capitalism in Horatio Alger Alan Trachtenberg, Albums of War: On Reading Civil War Photographs Henry Louis Gates, The Trope of the New Negro and the Reconstruction of the Image of the Black Michael Rogin, "The Sword Became a Flashing Vision": D. W. Griffith's "The Birth of a Nation"
TL;DR: Warner as mentioned in this paper showed that the United States became a nation by developing a new kind of reading public, where one becomes a citizen by taking ones place as writer or reader, and the new and widespread use of print media transformed the relations between people and power in a way that set in motion the republican structure of government we have inherited.
Abstract: The subject of Michael Warner's book is the rise of a nation. America, he shows, became a nation by developing a new kind of reading public, where one becomes a citizen by taking ones place as writer or reader. At heart, the United States is a republic of letters, and its birth can be dated from changes in the culture of printing in the early eighteenth century The new and widespread use of print media transformed the relations between people and power in a way that set in motion the republican structure of government we have inherited.