The Theory and Practice of Reception Study

Reading Race and Gender in Twain, Faulkner, Ellison, and Morrison
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-032-21122-0
Verlag: Taylor & Francis

Buch, Englisch, 218 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 463 g

Reihe: Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature

This book examines novels of Faulkner and Morrison as well as Mark Twain and Ralph Ellison in order to show that their works forcefully undermine the racial and sexual divisions characterizing both the South and contemporary culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moreover, the book discusses theories of reader-response and reception study and elaborates a theory of reception study based on the historical or "archeological" methods of Michel Foucault. As a consequence, unlike most studies of American literature, which discuss its historical contexts or prescribe its readers’ responses, this book explains the reception of these works, including the academic criticism and reviews and, because the internet exerts immense influence in the twenty-first century, the on-line responses of ordinary readers. Unlike most reception studies, this book examines the institutional contexts of the readers’ responses.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Goldstein, Philip

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde Minderheiten, Interkulturelle & Multikulturelle Fragen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Gattungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Feminismus, Feministische Theorie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction:

Ch. 1: Aesthetic Theory: From Adorno to Cultural History

Ch. 2: Reading in History and in Theory

Ch. 3: Mark Twain’s Detective Fiction: From The Stolen White Elephant and The Double-Barrelled Detective Story to The Adventures of Pudd’nHead Wilson.

Ch. 4: Faulkner’s Subversive Modernism: Light in August

Ch. 5: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man: Modernism and Democracy in American Literature

Ch.6: Three Days Before the Shooting: Modernism and Democracy in/and American Literature

Ch.7: Toni Morrison’s Beloved: The Forgotten History of Slavery and Patriarchy

Ch. 8: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy: The Critique of Patriarchy and History’s Lost Opportunities

Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Philip Goldstein earned a B.A. in English from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in English from Temple University and was promoted to full professor at the University of Delaware in 2001. With James Machor, he edited Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies (Routledge 2001).