The Public Mind and the Politics of Postmillennial U.S.-American Writing

Published by De Gruyter 2022

The Public Mind and the Politics of Postmillennial U.S.-American Writing

Edited by: Jolene Mathieson , Marius Henderson and Julia Lange

Volume 79 in the series Buchreihe der Anglia / Anglia Book Series

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110771350

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the last twenty years, how has U.S.-American writing and the reading public responded to the complexity of an American culture resolutely situated in a larger, highly politicized, globalized world undergoing radical change? The 20th-century modes of realism and postmodernism have been succeeded by writerly practices that are that are invested in the idea of embodied ‘authenticity’ and that are relatable to neorealism, whether it be via outright affirmation or critical experimentation and appropriation. The individual case studies mark the ways in which postmillennial U.S.-American writing is marked by an ongoing awareness toward complexity and the entanglement of writers and the reading public with pressing political concerns, and, at times oppressive, social and economic discursive and structural formations. These contributions further attest to how narrative and structural complexity, grammatical and lexical sophistication, and social nuance endure as the main literary modes of confronting 21st-century political life. This volume is thus of interest for both the study of U.S.-American political culture and U.S.-American literature.

Author / Editor information

J. Mathieson, Leipzig University; M. Henderson, Friedrich–Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg; J. Lange, University of Hamburg.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Acknowledgements Publicly Available Download PDF	VII
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	IX
The Public Mind and the Politics of Postmillennial U.S.-American Writing Jolene Mathieson, Marius Henderson and Julia Lange Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Section One: Novel Transitions in the Millennium
The Late Style of Three Postmodernist Masters: Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Robert Coover Heinz Ickstadt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
Siri Hustvedt and the Transdisciplinary Knowledge of Literature Hubert Zapf Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
Shostakovich, Totalitarianism, and Anglo-American Fiction: Powers, Barnes, and Vollmann Ulfried Reichardt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	49
History is Suffering: Reading Teju Cole’s Open City in Light of Walter Benjamin and W. G. Sebald Joseph C. Schöpp Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
Greek Passion Revisited: Appropriations of Medea in African American Fiction Christa Buschendorf Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
Section Two: Realisms and Representing the Anthropocene
The Newly Conventional U.S.-American Novel and the (Neo‐)Liberal Imagination: on Franzen, Eggers, and the Like Sabine Sielke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	109
Neorealism, Metonymy, and the Question of Contingency Thomas Claviez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
For the Birds: Nell Zink’s and Jonathan Franzen’s Environmentalist Fiction Astrid Böger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
“…the Wood for the Trees”: Scale, Sentience, and Sentiment in Richard Powers’ The Overstory Jan D Kucharzewski Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Forests, Sustainability, and the Ecological Cynicism of the Anthropocene: Reading Annie Proulx’s Barkskins Catrin Gersdorf Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Section Three: Identity and the Poetics of Transgression
Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric: Fighting Microaggression, Loneliness, and Disconnection Astrid Franke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Ellen Hinsey: Poet of the Public Sphere Andrew S. Gross Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
“In Part, Absolutely”: Language, Form, and Potential in Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School Kai Hopen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
The 1619 Project as Aesthetic and Social Practice; or, the Art of the Essay in the Digital Age Laura Bieger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Notes on Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Literary studies scholars, historians, cultural studies scholars, gender studies scholars.
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 285
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 2
- Coloured Illustrations: 5
Keywords: Neorealism; postcritique; anthropocene

eBook

Published: August 22, 2022
ISBN: 9783110771350

Hardcover

Published: August 22, 2022
ISBN: 9783110771282

Paperback

Planned Publication: August 18, 2024
ISBN: 9783111533728