This Companion offers a compelling survey of American literature in the 1930s. These thirteen new essays by accomplished scholars in the field provide re-examinations of crucial trends in the decade: the rise of the proletarian novel; the intersection of radical politics and experimental aesthetics; the documentary turn; the rise of left-wing theatres; popular fictional genres; the impact of Marxist thought on African-American historical writing; the relation of modernist prose to mass entertainment. Placing such issues in their political and economic contexts, this Companion constitutes an excellent introduction to a vital area of critical and scholarly inquiry. This collection also functions as a valuable reference guide to Depression-era cultural practice, furnishing readers with a chronology of important historical events in the decade and crucial publication dates, as well as a wide-ranging bibliography for those interested in reading further into the field.

Literature, Amusement and Technology examines the exchange between literature and recreational practices in 1930s America. William Solomon argues that autobiographical writers like Edward Dahlberg and Henry Miller took aesthetic inspiration from urban manifestations of the carnival spirit: Coney Island amusement parks, burlesque, vaudeville, and the dime museum display of human oddities. More broadly, he demonstrates that the literary projects of the period pivoted around images of grotesquely disfigured bodies which appeared as part of this recreational culture. Figures of corporeal fragmentation also proved important to novelists such as Nathanael West and John Dos Passos who were concerned to resist the ideological force of spectacular forms of mass entertainment like the World's Fairs, Hollywood film and military ceremonies. Psychic, social, aesthetic and political tensions were thus managed in Depression-era American literature in relation to communal modes of play. This study will appeal to scholars of twentieth-century American literature and culture.

This study examines the exchange between literature and recreational practices in 1930s America. William Solomon argues that autobiographical writers like Edward Dahlberg and Henry Miller derived aesthetic inspiration from urban manifestations of the carnival spirit: Coney Island amusement parks, burlesque, vaudeville, and the dime museum display of human oddities. More broadly, he demonstrates that the literary projects of the period pivoted around images of grotesquely disfigured bodies which appeared as part of this recreational culture.

This Companion offers a compelling survey of American literature in the 1930s. These thirteen new essays by accomplished scholars in the field provide re-examinations of crucial trends in the decade: the rise of the proletarian novel; the intersection of radical politics and experimental aesthetics; the documentary turn; the rise of left-wing theatres; popular fictional genres; the impact of Marxist thought on African-American historical writing; the relation of modernist prose to mass entertainment. Placing such issues in their political and economic contexts, this Companion constitutes an excellent introduction to a vital area of critical and scholarly inquiry. This collection also functions as a valuable reference guide to Depression-era cultural practice, furnishing readers with a chronology of important historical events in the decade and crucial publication dates, as well as a wide-ranging bibliography for those interested in reading further into the field.

"Ruthless Criticism "was first published in 1993. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions.

"Ruthless Criticism "offers perspectives and subjects largely outside traditional historiography. It broadens the concept of media history to include lesser-studied media, and offers alternative interpretations of traditional media.

This anthology of original research includes an array of scholarly and theoretical perspectives. Each addresses specific topic within a specific era. reflecting the diversity of U.S. mass media.

Solomon and McChesney begin by using critical theory and deconstruction to examine the meanings of print in the colonial era. Subsequent chapters study the media ecology of the antebellum press; the intense focus on profits of the post-Civil War mainstream press; gender images in the labor press; the diversity of political views within the working-class press; and the development of a commercial press in the black community.

The essays concerning the twentieth century focus on the rise of a culture industry and include studies on the origins of the broadcast ratings system and the commercial broadcast system and the commercial broadcast system, early television's portrayals of childhood, the televisions networks' close ties with the federal government, the government's key role in creating and developing the field of mass communication research, and teenage girls' popular culture from 1960-1968 as a formative influence on the feminist movement.