Kategoria BISAC: Literary Criticism >> Subjects & Themes - Politics

For a half century, the American intellectual Fredric Jameson has been a driving force in literary and cultural theory. In "Periodizing Jameson, "Phillip E. Wegner builds upon Jameson s unique dialectical method to demonstrate the value of Jameson s tools periodization, the fourfold hermeneutic, and the Greimasian semiotic square, among others and to develop virtuoso readings of Jameson s own work and the history of the contemporary American university in which it unfolds.

Wegner shows how Jameson s work intervenes in particular social, cultural, and political situations, using his...

The writings of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) have captivated scholars, activists, and ecologists for more than a century. Less attention has been paid, however, to the author's political philosophy and its influence on American public life. Although Thoreau's doctrine of civil disobedience has long since become a touchstone of world history, the greater part of his political legacy has been overlooked. With a resurgence of interest in recent years, A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau is the first volume focused exclusively on Thoreau's ethical and political...

Saul Bellow is one of the twentieth century's most influential, respected, and honored writers. His novels The Adventures of Augie March, Herzog, and Mr. Sammler's Planet won the National Book Award, and Humboldt's Gift was awarded the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In addition, his plays garnered popular and critical acclaim, and some were produced on Broadway. Known for his insights into life in a post-Holocaust world, Bellow's explorations of modernity, Jewish identity, and the relationship between art and society have resonated with his readers, but...

In 1962, Walker Percy (1916--1990) made a dramatic entrance onto the American literary scene when he won the National Book Award for fiction with his first novel, The Moviegoer. A physician, philosopher, and devout Catholic, Percy dedicated his life to understanding the mixed and somewhat contradictory foundations of American life as a situation faced by the wandering and won-dering human soul. His controversial works combined existential questioning, scientific investigation, the insight of the southern stoic, and authentic religious faith to produce a singular view of humanity's...

Henry Adams, great-grandson of John Adams, grandson of John Quincy Adams, and author of the Pulitzer Prize--winning The Education of Henry Adams, is often overlooked as a serious political thinker. Many scholars have dismissed his writings as cynical and bitter while others regard him as a mere observer of American politics, accepting Adams's description of himself as a "stable-companion to statesmen." A Political Companion to Henry Adams suggests that he was far more.

In this provocative collection, editor Natalie Fuehrer Taylor presents works by some of the leading political...

No other American novelist has written so fully about language -- grammar, diction, the place of colloquialism and dialect in literary English, the relation between speech and writing -- as William Dean Howells. The power of language to create social, political, and racial identity was of central concern to Americans in the nineteenth century, and the implications of language in this regard are strikingly revealed in the writings of Howells, the most influential critic and editor of his age.

In this first full-scale treatment of Howells as a writer about language, Elsa Nettels offers...

This is a collection of classic and newly commissioned essays about the study of Indigenous literatures in North America. The contributing scholars include some of the most venerable Indigenous theorists, among them Gerald Vizenor (Anishinaabe), Jeannette Armstrong (Okanagan), Craig Womack (Creek), Kimberley Blaeser (Anishinaabe), Emma LaRocque (Metis), Daniel Heath Justice (Cherokee), Janice Acoose (Saulteaux), and Jo-Ann Episkenew (Metis). Also included are settler scholars foundational to the field, including Helen Hoy, Margery Fee, and Renate Eigenbrod. Among the newer voices are both...

This book describes intriguing issues raised by the sharing economy which has resulted in rapid financial growth for several internet firms, such as Airbnb and Expedia/HomeAway, which have rapidly become larger than major hotel chains. The impending surprise is the current economic disaster that is resulting from overreaching of city laws designed to raise city tax revenue, but instead are now causing severe damage the local and national economy.

The rapid growth of short-term rentals resulted in aggressive response from hotel workers unions and low-income persons who want minimal...

When Brazil was honored at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2013, the Brazilian author Luiz Ruffato opened the event with a provocative speech, claiming that literature, through its pervasive depiction and discussion of otherness, has the potential to provoke ethical transformation. This book uses Ruffato s speech as a starting point for the discussion of contemporary Brazilian literature that stands in contrast to the repetition of social and cultural cliches. By illuminating the relevance of humanities and literature as a catalyst for rethinking Brazil, the book offers a resistance to the...

History after Liberty...

During America's founding period, poets and balladeers engaged in a series of literary "wars" against political leaders, journalists, and each other, all in the name of determining the political course of the new nation. Political poems and songs appeared regularly in newspapers (and as pamphlets and broadsides), commenting on political issues and controversies and satirizing leaders like Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. Drawing on hundreds of individual poems--including many that are frequently overlooked--Poetry Wars reconstructs the world of literary-political struggle as...