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With social and political issues providing the foreground of
literary studies over the past several years, William Dean Howells
has re-emerged as a major author. Yet, among canonical American
writers, Howells simultaneously attracts both significant attention
and curious neglect. While studies devoted to his novels, The Rise
of Silas Lapham and A Hazard of New Fortunes, are proliferating,
the attention paid to his later writing, particularly his short
fiction, is not only far less sustained but often dismissive,
promoting a continuous inattention to the process by which the
author discovers new forms and expression. William Dean Howells and
the American Memory Crisis confronts the frequent refusal to see
Howells as a writer whose lifelong engagement with literature
pushed him through generic boundaries in search of new ways of
shaping his fiction and questioning American identity. By focusing
on Howellss preoccupation with tropes of memory and amnesia, this
book positions his work within the American memory crisis, the
turn-of-the-centurys pervasive feelings of fragmentation, loss, and
dislocation that followed breathtaking transformations in the pace
of everyday life and traditional social structures, which
contributed to the sense that the linear inheritance of the past
was severely weakened, if not broken beyond repair. As Americans
engaged in a politics of memorywith various groups battling for
their stake in shaping Americas present and future by defining its
pastHowellss work interacts with a number of social discourses and
practices through which national identity was being (re)constructed
and debated. The book explores these sites of memory, including
historiography, therhetoric of imperialism, the revival in
historical romantic fiction, the rise of photography, the boom in
monument construction, the beginnings of modern advertising, the
interest in spiritualism and the occult, and literary history
itself. By focusing on two neglected areas of Howells studieshis
late short fiction and his engagement in the politics of
memoryWilliam Dean Howells and the American Memory Crisis clarifies
the convergence of his aesthetic and political goals and challenges
recent innovative studies that situate Howells and literary realism
as reinforcing late-nineteenth-century hierarchies of race, class,
and gender. As a major figure of the traditional canon, Howells
routinely has been positioned as a powerful cultural authority who
was either deceptive of his real goals, willfully hypocritical, or
ignorant of the actual political scene in which he was working.
Rubins book complicates some of these accepted views by arguing
that, while not apolitical, Howells was not as nave or as
reactionary as some have claimed. By not accounting for the
direction Howells takes in his later work, particularly as it
imagines and represents memory, previous studiesso reliant on
postmodern-influenced criticism seem to have often overlooked
Howellss own postmodern leanings. Tropes of memory and amnesia have
become prominent in postmodern theories of history and
subjectivity, registering anxiety about the stability of the self
and serving as metaphors for the impossibility of objective and
secure historical narratives. Howellss work, this book maintains,
consistently gestures toward these and other characteristics of the
postmodern in its approach to history and questions the versions
ofliterary realism that have become sacrosanct within the academy.
Ultimately, this book provides other teachers, researchers, and
students with a new framework with which to approach Howells and
American realism. As his discussion draws on a variety of discourse
in its exploration of Americas politics of memory, a secondary,
more interdisciplinary audience includes those interested in
political and social theory, history, and cultural studies. This is
an important book for scholars, students, and te
It's an all-new thrilling adventure about growing up and facing
your fears in Monsters Take Manhattan, the second novel in the
Monster Club series from the creative minds of Darren Aronofsky,
Ari Handel, and Lance Rubin. Ever since Eric "Doodles" King and his
friends saved Coney Island from Crumple Monster and its minions,
Eric's life has been changing faster than he ever expected. His
parents' divorce has gone through, his mom has moved to a deluxe
apartment in Manhattan, and now she's making him start all over at
a fancy new private school. Suddenly, Eric's trapped between two
worlds - his old Coney Island friends and the rich, cool kids at
his new school who treat him like a celebrity. At least, Eric
thinks, his days of epic monster battles are behind him. But what
he doesn't realize is that the magic mermaid ink that brought his
drawings to life hasn't been destroyed like he thought. Quite the
opposite, King Neptune has found a way to take the last remaining
drops to create a new class of creatures perfectly designed to put
New York City right back where it belongs - underwater. Now it's up
to Eric to rally Monster Club again and find a way to bring back
Brickman, Bellybeast, Skelegurl, DecaSpyder, and RoboKillz so they
can stop Neptune before it's too late. Monster Club: Monsters Take
Manhattan is the second epic, heart-pounding adventure from
award-winning screenwriter, director, and author Darren Aronofsky,
Ari Handel, and Lance Rubin.
The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television:
Twenty-First-Century Bust Culture sheds light on how imaginary
works of fiction, film, and television reflect, refract, and
respond to the recessionary times specific to the twenty-first
century, a sustained period of economic crisis that has earned the
title the "Great Recession." This collection takes as its focus
"Bust Culture," a concept that refers to post-crash popular
culture, specifically the kind mass produced by multinational
corporations in the age of media conglomeration, which is inflected
by diminishment, influenced by scarcity, and infused with anxiety.
The multidisciplinary contributors collected here examine mass
culture not typically included in discussions of the financial
meltdown, from disaster films to reality TV hoarders, the horror
genre to reactionary representations of women, Christian right
radio to Batman, television characters of color to graphic novels
and literary fiction. The collected essays treat our busted culture
as a seismograph that registers the traumas of collapse, and locate
their pop artifacts along a spectrum of ideological fantasies,
social erasures, and profound fears inspired by the Great
Recession. What they discover from these unlikely indicators of the
recession is a mix of regressive, progressive, and bemused texts in
need of critical translation.
The Great Recession in Fiction, Film, and Television:
Twenty-First-Century Bust Culture sheds light on how imaginary
works of fiction, film, and television reflect, refract, and
respond to the recessionary times specific to the twenty-first
century, a sustained period of economic crisis that has earned the
title the "Great Recession." This collection takes as its focus
"Bust Culture," a concept that refers to post-crash popular
culture, specifically the kind mass produced by multinational
corporations in the age of media conglomeration, which is inflected
by diminishment, influenced by scarcity, and infused with anxiety.
The multidisciplinary contributors collected here examine mass
culture not typically included in discussions of the financial
meltdown, from disaster films to reality TV hoarders, the horror
genre to reactionary representations of women, Christian right
radio to Batman, television characters of color to graphic novels
and literary fiction. The collected essays treat our busted culture
as a seismograph that registers the traumas of collapse, and locate
their pop artifacts along a spectrum of ideological fantasies,
social erasures, and profound fears inspired by the Great
Recession. What they discover from these unlikely indicators of the
recession is a mix of regressive, progressive, and bemused texts in
need of critical translation.
Reading Chuck Palahniuk examines how the author pushes through a
variety of boundaries to shape fiction and to question American
identity in powerful and important ways. Palahniuk's innovative
stylistic accomplishments and notoriously disturbing subject
matters invite close analysis, and the new essays in this
collection offer fascinating insights about Palahniuk's texts,
contexts, contributions, and controversies. Addressing novels from
Fight Club through Snuff, as well as his nonfiction, this volume
will be valuable to anyone with a serious interest in contemporary
literature.
Reading Chuck Palahniuk examines how the author pushes through a
variety of boundaries to shape fiction and to question American
identity in powerful and important ways. Palahniuk's innovative
stylistic accomplishments and notoriously disturbing subject
matters invite close analysis, and the new essays in this
collection offer fascinating insights about Palahniuk's texts,
contexts, contributions, and controversies. Addressing novels from
Fight Club through Snuff, as well as his nonfiction, this volume
will be valuable to anyone with a serious interest in contemporary
literature.
The first of two books, Denton Little's Deathdate is an utterly
gripping read - with a killer plot twist, hilarious characters, and
a truly memorable voice. Imminent death has never been so funny!
Denton Little's Deathdate takes place in a world exactly like our
own - except that everyone knows the day on which they will die.
For Denton, that's in just two days - the day of his senior prom.
Despite his early deathdate, Denton has always wanted to live a
normal life - but his final days are filled with dramatic firsts.
First hangover. First sex. First love triangle (the first sex seems
to have happened not with his adoring girlfriend, but with his best
friend's sister. Though he's not totallysure - see, first
hangover). His anxiety builds when he discovers a mysterious purple
rash making its way up his body. Is this what will kill him? Then a
strange man shows up at his funeral, claiming to have known
Denton's long-deceased mother, and giving him a confusing
warning... Suddenly Denton's life is filled with mysterious
questions and precious little time to find the answers. Lance Rubin
takes us on a fast, gripping, and outrageously funny ride through
the last hours of a teenager's life as he searches for love,
meaning and (just maybe) a way to live on . . .
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