Henry B. Wonham
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195161946
- eISBN:
- 9780199788101
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161946.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This book asks why so many of the writers who aligned themselves with the social and aesthetic aims of American literary realism apparently violated their most basic principles in relying on stock ...
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This book asks why so many of the writers who aligned themselves with the social and aesthetic aims of American literary realism apparently violated their most basic principles in relying on stock conventions of ethnic caricature in their treatment of immigrant and African American figures. As a self-described “tool of the democratic spirit”, designed to “prick the bubbles of abstract types” (William Dean Howells), literary realism would seem to have little in common with the aggressively dehumanizing comic imagery that began to proliferate in American magazines and newspapers after the Civil War. Indeed, Howells touted the democratic impulse of realist imagery, and Alain Locke hailed realism's potential to accomplish “the artistic emancipation of the Negro”. Yet in practice, Howells and his fellow realists regularly employed comic typification of ethnic subjects as a feature of their representational practice. Critics have generally dismissed such lapses in realist technique as vestiges of a genteel social consciousness that failed to keep pace with the movement's avowed democratic aspirations. Such explanations are useful to a point, but they overlook the fact that the age of realism in American art and letters was simultaneously the great age of ethnic caricature. This book argues that these two aesthetic programs, one committed to representation of the fully humanized individual, the other invested in broad ethnic abstractions, operate less as antithetical choices than as complementary impulses, both of which receive full play within the era's most demanding literary and graphic works.Less
This book asks why so many of the writers who aligned themselves with the social and aesthetic aims of American literary realism apparently violated their most basic principles in relying on stock conventions of ethnic caricature in their treatment of immigrant and African American figures. As a self-described “tool of the democratic spirit”, designed to “prick the bubbles of abstract types” (William Dean Howells), literary realism would seem to have little in common with the aggressively dehumanizing comic imagery that began to proliferate in American magazines and newspapers after the Civil War. Indeed, Howells touted the democratic impulse of realist imagery, and Alain Locke hailed realism's potential to accomplish “the artistic emancipation of the Negro”. Yet in practice, Howells and his fellow realists regularly employed comic typification of ethnic subjects as a feature of their representational practice. Critics have generally dismissed such lapses in realist technique as vestiges of a genteel social consciousness that failed to keep pace with the movement's avowed democratic aspirations. Such explanations are useful to a point, but they overlook the fact that the age of realism in American art and letters was simultaneously the great age of ethnic caricature. This book argues that these two aesthetic programs, one committed to representation of the fully humanized individual, the other invested in broad ethnic abstractions, operate less as antithetical choices than as complementary impulses, both of which receive full play within the era's most demanding literary and graphic works.
Henry B. Wonham
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195161946
- eISBN:
- 9780199788101
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195161946.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
This chapter examines Charles Chesnutt's early sketches in Puck, theorizing that the magazine's insensitive treatment of every imaginable ethnic group or identity provided an important laboratory for ...
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This chapter examines Charles Chesnutt's early sketches in Puck, theorizing that the magazine's insensitive treatment of every imaginable ethnic group or identity provided an important laboratory for Chesnutt's apprenticeship in the art of ethnic caricature. Focusing on the radical juxtapositions of ethnic imagery throughout Puck's printed pages, this chapter suggests that Chesnutt's art is uniquely suited to the era's fascination with ethnic typology. Nevertheless, the chapter argues that the use of ethnic caricature by a writer of color produced its own forms of ambivalence.Less
This chapter examines Charles Chesnutt's early sketches in Puck, theorizing that the magazine's insensitive treatment of every imaginable ethnic group or identity provided an important laboratory for Chesnutt's apprenticeship in the art of ethnic caricature. Focusing on the radical juxtapositions of ethnic imagery throughout Puck's printed pages, this chapter suggests that Chesnutt's art is uniquely suited to the era's fascination with ethnic typology. Nevertheless, the chapter argues that the use of ethnic caricature by a writer of color produced its own forms of ambivalence.
Joanne Lipson Freed
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781501713767
- eISBN:
- 9781501713828
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501713767.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Beginning with the basic conviction that acts of cross-cultural reading have ethical consequences, Haunting Encounters traces the narrative strategies through which certain works fiction forge ...
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Beginning with the basic conviction that acts of cross-cultural reading have ethical consequences, Haunting Encounters traces the narrative strategies through which certain works fiction forge connections with their readers—in particular, their white, Western readers—across boundaries of difference. Through the formal and aesthetic negotiations they carry out, which both draw readers in and set limits on their imaginative engagements, these works respond in concrete ways to the asymmetries of their circulation and consumption in our contemporary global age. By bringing the tools and methods of rhetorical narrative theory to bear on well-known works of ethnic and postcolonial literature, Haunting Encounters revises existing models of narrative ethics—both those based on empathy, and those grounded in alterity—to account for the particular complications and stakes of staging cross-cultural encounters in and through fiction. Illustrating that both sameness and difference are essential elements of our ethical encounters with fictional texts, Haunting Encounters ultimately advocates for a practice of global, comparative literary analysis that is energized, rather than confounded, by this fundamental tension.Less
Beginning with the basic conviction that acts of cross-cultural reading have ethical consequences, Haunting Encounters traces the narrative strategies through which certain works fiction forge connections with their readers—in particular, their white, Western readers—across boundaries of difference. Through the formal and aesthetic negotiations they carry out, which both draw readers in and set limits on their imaginative engagements, these works respond in concrete ways to the asymmetries of their circulation and consumption in our contemporary global age. By bringing the tools and methods of rhetorical narrative theory to bear on well-known works of ethnic and postcolonial literature, Haunting Encounters revises existing models of narrative ethics—both those based on empathy, and those grounded in alterity—to account for the particular complications and stakes of staging cross-cultural encounters in and through fiction. Illustrating that both sameness and difference are essential elements of our ethical encounters with fictional texts, Haunting Encounters ultimately advocates for a practice of global, comparative literary analysis that is energized, rather than confounded, by this fundamental tension.
Tara Fickle
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479868551
- eISBN:
- 9781479805686
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479868551.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This book uncovers popular games’ key role in the cultural construction of modern racial fictions. It argues that gaming provides the lens, language, and logic—in short, the authority—behind racial ...
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This book uncovers popular games’ key role in the cultural construction of modern racial fictions. It argues that gaming provides the lens, language, and logic—in short, the authority—behind racial boundary making, reinforcing and at times subverting beliefs about where people racially and spatially belong. It focuses specifically on the experience of Asian Americans and the longer history of ludo-Orientalism, wherein play, the creation of games, and the use of game theory shape how East-West relations are imagined and reinforce notions of foreignness and perceptions of racial difference. Drawing from literary and critical texts, analog and digital games, journalistic accounts, marketing campaigns, and archival material, The Race Cardshows how ludo-Orientalism informs a range of historical events and social processes which readers may not even think of as related to play, from Chinese exclusion and the Japanese American internment to Cold War strategies, the model minority myth, and the globalization of Asian labor. Interrogating key moments in the formation of modern U.S. race relations, The Race Cardintroduces a new set of critical terms for engaging the literature as well as the legislation that emerged from these agonistic struggles.Less
This book uncovers popular games’ key role in the cultural construction of modern racial fictions. It argues that gaming provides the lens, language, and logic—in short, the authority—behind racial boundary making, reinforcing and at times subverting beliefs about where people racially and spatially belong. It focuses specifically on the experience of Asian Americans and the longer history of ludo-Orientalism, wherein play, the creation of games, and the use of game theory shape how East-West relations are imagined and reinforce notions of foreignness and perceptions of racial difference. Drawing from literary and critical texts, analog and digital games, journalistic accounts, marketing campaigns, and archival material, The Race Cardshows how ludo-Orientalism informs a range of historical events and social processes which readers may not even think of as related to play, from Chinese exclusion and the Japanese American internment to Cold War strategies, the model minority myth, and the globalization of Asian labor. Interrogating key moments in the formation of modern U.S. race relations, The Race Cardintroduces a new set of critical terms for engaging the literature as well as the legislation that emerged from these agonistic struggles.
Orm Øverland
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195385342
- eISBN:
- 9780190252779
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195385342.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 19th Century Literature
This chapter examines American novels written in languages other than English and their place in American literature. It first considers the reasons why American writers have used languages other ...
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This chapter examines American novels written in languages other than English and their place in American literature. It first considers the reasons why American writers have used languages other than English, along with the differences between ethnic literature in English and in non-English languages. It then looks at examples of central themes in U.S. literary studies that may benefit from the inclusion of writing in languages other than the English language. It also discusses American novels in Norwegian that were published when sentiment against immigrants was flourishing. Finally, the chapter cites authors who have written novels in non-English languages, including Abraham Cahan, Ole Edvart Rølvaag, Emil Lauritz Mengshoel, and Ole A. Buslett.Less
This chapter examines American novels written in languages other than English and their place in American literature. It first considers the reasons why American writers have used languages other than English, along with the differences between ethnic literature in English and in non-English languages. It then looks at examples of central themes in U.S. literary studies that may benefit from the inclusion of writing in languages other than the English language. It also discusses American novels in Norwegian that were published when sentiment against immigrants was flourishing. Finally, the chapter cites authors who have written novels in non-English languages, including Abraham Cahan, Ole Edvart Rølvaag, Emil Lauritz Mengshoel, and Ole A. Buslett.
Jacob Rama Berman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814789506
- eISBN:
- 9780814789513
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814789506.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Cultural Studies
This book examines representations of Arabs, Islam, and the Near East in nineteenth-century American culture, arguing that these representations play a significant role in the development of American ...
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This book examines representations of Arabs, Islam, and the Near East in nineteenth-century American culture, arguing that these representations play a significant role in the development of American national identity over the century, revealing largely unexplored exchanges between these two cultural traditions that will alter how we understand them today. Moving from the period of America's engagement in the Barbary Wars through the Holy Land travel mania in the years of Jacksonian expansion and into the writings of romantics such as Edgar Allan Poe, the book argues that not only were Arabs and Muslims prominently featured in nineteenth-century literature, but that the differences that writers established between figures such as Moors, Bedouins, Turks and Orientals provide proof of the transnational scope of domestic racial politics. Drawing on both English and Arabic language sources, the book contends that the fluidity and instability of the term Arab as it appears in captivity narratives, travel narratives, imaginative literature, and ethnic literature simultaneously instantiate and undermine definitions of the American nation and American citizenship.Less
This book examines representations of Arabs, Islam, and the Near East in nineteenth-century American culture, arguing that these representations play a significant role in the development of American national identity over the century, revealing largely unexplored exchanges between these two cultural traditions that will alter how we understand them today. Moving from the period of America's engagement in the Barbary Wars through the Holy Land travel mania in the years of Jacksonian expansion and into the writings of romantics such as Edgar Allan Poe, the book argues that not only were Arabs and Muslims prominently featured in nineteenth-century literature, but that the differences that writers established between figures such as Moors, Bedouins, Turks and Orientals provide proof of the transnational scope of domestic racial politics. Drawing on both English and Arabic language sources, the book contends that the fluidity and instability of the term Arab as it appears in captivity narratives, travel narratives, imaginative literature, and ethnic literature simultaneously instantiate and undermine definitions of the American nation and American citizenship.
Sara Upstone
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719078323
- eISBN:
- 9781781703229
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719078323.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
In his three novels, Season of the Rainbirds (1993), Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) and The Wasted Vigil (2008), Nadeem Aslam fuses conventional postcolonial themes and literary techniques with a ...
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In his three novels, Season of the Rainbirds (1993), Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) and The Wasted Vigil (2008), Nadeem Aslam fuses conventional postcolonial themes and literary techniques with a distinctly British sensibility. Born in Pakistan in 1966, he came with his parents to Britain at the age of fourteen, where the family settled in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and has described himself as ‘a Pakistani man living in Britain’. Yet, elsewhere, Aslam is described as ‘Pakistani-British’. This personal history embodies his dual positioning as both British Asian and postcolonial migrant author. In many senses, Aslam, rather than embodying the qualities of British Asian literature, is part of the publishing storm surrounding postcolonial writers that developed in the 1990s. He is evidence of how, to consider British Asian authors simply in relation to an ethnic literature (whether defined as British Asian, Black British or postcolonial) is to neglect wider paradigms in contemporary literary fiction: not just British, but also international.Less
In his three novels, Season of the Rainbirds (1993), Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) and The Wasted Vigil (2008), Nadeem Aslam fuses conventional postcolonial themes and literary techniques with a distinctly British sensibility. Born in Pakistan in 1966, he came with his parents to Britain at the age of fourteen, where the family settled in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, and has described himself as ‘a Pakistani man living in Britain’. Yet, elsewhere, Aslam is described as ‘Pakistani-British’. This personal history embodies his dual positioning as both British Asian and postcolonial migrant author. In many senses, Aslam, rather than embodying the qualities of British Asian literature, is part of the publishing storm surrounding postcolonial writers that developed in the 1990s. He is evidence of how, to consider British Asian authors simply in relation to an ethnic literature (whether defined as British Asian, Black British or postcolonial) is to neglect wider paradigms in contemporary literary fiction: not just British, but also international.
Stephen Poland
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9789888528134
- eISBN:
- 9789882205949
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789888528134.003.0017
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
In 1941, the writer Nogawa Takashi (1901-1944) was both nominated for the Akutagawa Prize in Japan and arrested in Manchukuo for his involvement in the Cooperative Movement (gassakusha undō) in rural ...
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In 1941, the writer Nogawa Takashi (1901-1944) was both nominated for the Akutagawa Prize in Japan and arrested in Manchukuo for his involvement in the Cooperative Movement (gassakusha undō) in rural north Manchuria. This dissonance between the literary recognition of Nogawa in the imperial metropole and his tragic fate—he died in prison three years after his arrest—marks him as an emblematic figure of the complexities of Manchukuo and the Japanese empire. Drawing on Naoki Sakai’s concept of heterolingual address, this chapter examines how Nogawa’s short story “The People Who Go to the Hamlet” (“Tonzu ni iku hitobito”) narratively stages ethnic interaction in the Cooperative Movement as a process of articulation between individuals in order to explore the (im)possibility of cross-class, cross-ethnic alliance. In contrast with the dominant state metaphor of “ethnic harmony” as a state of being between different peoples, Nogawa’s fiction both portrays and performs acts of “harmonization” and dissonance through grassroots organizing in a way that acknowledges the reality of class and ethnic difference, while also scrutinizing these differences and maintaining their possible permeability.Less
In 1941, the writer Nogawa Takashi (1901-1944) was both nominated for the Akutagawa Prize in Japan and arrested in Manchukuo for his involvement in the Cooperative Movement (gassakusha undō) in rural north Manchuria. This dissonance between the literary recognition of Nogawa in the imperial metropole and his tragic fate—he died in prison three years after his arrest—marks him as an emblematic figure of the complexities of Manchukuo and the Japanese empire. Drawing on Naoki Sakai’s concept of heterolingual address, this chapter examines how Nogawa’s short story “The People Who Go to the Hamlet” (“Tonzu ni iku hitobito”) narratively stages ethnic interaction in the Cooperative Movement as a process of articulation between individuals in order to explore the (im)possibility of cross-class, cross-ethnic alliance. In contrast with the dominant state metaphor of “ethnic harmony” as a state of being between different peoples, Nogawa’s fiction both portrays and performs acts of “harmonization” and dissonance through grassroots organizing in a way that acknowledges the reality of class and ethnic difference, while also scrutinizing these differences and maintaining their possible permeability.
Tara Fickle
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479868551
- eISBN:
- 9781479805686
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479868551.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
The introduction traces the book’s main argument and previews its structure. It begins with a discussion of the mobile game Pokémon GO to illustrate popular games’ key role in the construction of ...
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The introduction traces the book’s main argument and previews its structure. It begins with a discussion of the mobile game Pokémon GO to illustrate popular games’ key role in the construction of modern racial fictions and emphasize the need for a more syncretic methodological approach to such cultural artifacts. After delineating the book’s particular focus on Asian and Asian American topics, the introduction situates the book within the broader fields of game studies, Asian American studies, and literary studies. It introduces a master concept, ludo-Orientalism, and offers an overview of how it functions as a nation-building discourse that defines America and the “West” in relation to abstract game ideals of fairness and freedom, shaping how East-West relations are imagined and reinforcing notions of foreignness and perceptions of racial differenceLess
The introduction traces the book’s main argument and previews its structure. It begins with a discussion of the mobile game Pokémon GO to illustrate popular games’ key role in the construction of modern racial fictions and emphasize the need for a more syncretic methodological approach to such cultural artifacts. After delineating the book’s particular focus on Asian and Asian American topics, the introduction situates the book within the broader fields of game studies, Asian American studies, and literary studies. It introduces a master concept, ludo-Orientalism, and offers an overview of how it functions as a nation-building discourse that defines America and the “West” in relation to abstract game ideals of fairness and freedom, shaping how East-West relations are imagined and reinforcing notions of foreignness and perceptions of racial difference
Chiara Mazzucchelli
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780823287864
- eISBN:
- 9780823290352
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823287864.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The crosspollination of literature and lyrics is not a new phenomenon in popular music, and classics of world literature continue to inspire songwriters who incorporate them in their art in different ...
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The crosspollination of literature and lyrics is not a new phenomenon in popular music, and classics of world literature continue to inspire songwriters who incorporate them in their art in different ways and forms. Although perhaps not yet quite recognized as a classic author, the Italian-American novelist John Fante has had an impact on popular culture and music both in Italy and in the United States. Reviewing a range of Italian and American songs that draw inspiration from Arturo Bandini, the protagonist of Fante’s saga, this essay explores the relationship among literature, music, and society through a reflection on the impact that a non-canonical American writer has on popular culture and how his ethnic experience reverberates in the singer/reader/listener’s life before earning approval from mainstream critics.Less
The crosspollination of literature and lyrics is not a new phenomenon in popular music, and classics of world literature continue to inspire songwriters who incorporate them in their art in different ways and forms. Although perhaps not yet quite recognized as a classic author, the Italian-American novelist John Fante has had an impact on popular culture and music both in Italy and in the United States. Reviewing a range of Italian and American songs that draw inspiration from Arturo Bandini, the protagonist of Fante’s saga, this essay explores the relationship among literature, music, and society through a reflection on the impact that a non-canonical American writer has on popular culture and how his ethnic experience reverberates in the singer/reader/listener’s life before earning approval from mainstream critics.
Donald Ostrowski (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501749704
- eISBN:
- 9781501749728
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501749704.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter talks about the Scottish poet James Macpherson. It analyzes Macpherson's publication of the “Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland,” which he claimed was his ...
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This chapter talks about the Scottish poet James Macpherson. It analyzes Macpherson's publication of the “Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland,” which he claimed was his own translation into English from old Gaelic manuscripts he discovered in the Scottish Highlands. It also looks into “Fingal,” an Ancient Epic Poem or cycle of poetry presumably sung by the legendary Scottish bard Ossian, which Macpherson also claimed was a translation from the Gaelic. The chapter examines the Ossian cycle that stimulated investigations and searches for ethnic folk literature, particularly for national epics throughout Europe and Russia that represented the mystical spirit of the nation. It looks into skeptics, such as Samuel Johnson, David Hume, and Horace Walpole who expressed doubt about the authenticity of Macpherson's translations.Less
This chapter talks about the Scottish poet James Macpherson. It analyzes Macpherson's publication of the “Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland,” which he claimed was his own translation into English from old Gaelic manuscripts he discovered in the Scottish Highlands. It also looks into “Fingal,” an Ancient Epic Poem or cycle of poetry presumably sung by the legendary Scottish bard Ossian, which Macpherson also claimed was a translation from the Gaelic. The chapter examines the Ossian cycle that stimulated investigations and searches for ethnic folk literature, particularly for national epics throughout Europe and Russia that represented the mystical spirit of the nation. It looks into skeptics, such as Samuel Johnson, David Hume, and Horace Walpole who expressed doubt about the authenticity of Macpherson's translations.