Du Bois's Telegram - Literary Resistance and State Containment (Hardcover)

In 1956 W. E. B. Du Bois was denied a passport to attend the Presence Africaine Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris. So he sent the assembled a telegram. "Any Negro-American who travels abroad today must either not discuss race conditions in the United States or say the sort of thing which our State Department wishes the world to believe." Taking seriously Du Bois's allegation, Juliana Spahr breathes new life into age-old questions as she explores how state interests have shaped U.S. literature. What is the relationship between literature and politics? Can writing be revolutionary? Can art be autonomous, or is escape from nations and nationalisms impossible? Du Bois's Telegram brings together a wide range of institutional forces implicated in literary production, paying special attention to three eras of writing that sought to defy political orthodoxies by contesting linguistic conventions: avant-garde modernism of the early twentieth century; social-movement writing of the 1960s and 1970s; and, in the twenty-first century, the profusion of English-language works incorporating languages other than English. Spahr shows how these literatures attempted to assert their autonomy, only to be shut down by FBI harassment or coopted by CIA and State Department propagandists. Liberal state allies such as the Ford and Rockefeller foundations made writers complicit by funding multiculturalist works that celebrated diversity and assimilation while starving radical anti-imperial, anti-racist, anti-capitalist efforts. Spahr does not deny the exhilarations of politically engaged art. But her study affirms a sobering reality: aesthetic resistance is easily domesticated.

General

Imprint:	Harvard University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	November 2018
Authors:	Juliana Spahr
Dimensions:	210 x 140 x 21mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	256
ISBN-13:	978-0-674-98696-1
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Public administration Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > From 1900 Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > Popular culture
LSN:	0-674-98696-2
Barcode:	9780674986961

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!