A Companion to the Modern American Novel, 1900 - 1950 (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture)

This cutting-edge Companion is a comprehensive resource for the study of the modern American novel. Published at a time when literary modernism is being thoroughly reassessed, it reflects current investigations into the origins and character of the movement as a whole. Brings together 28 original essays from leading scholars Allows readers to orient individual works and authors in their principal cultural and social contexts Contributes to efforts to recover minority voices, such as those of African American novelists, and popular subgenres, such as detective fiction Directs students to major relevant scholarship for further inquiry Suggests the many ways that "modern", "American" and "fiction" carry new meanings in the twenty-first century Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture Title page Copyright page Notes on Contributors List of Figures Preface Acknowledgments 1 An Economic History of the United States 1900-1950 The Move to the Cities, 1900-1920 The Prosperity Decade The New Deal The War and After The Postwar Settlements 2 The Changing Status of Women 1900-1950 Workers, Migrants, and Immigrants Middle-Class Women: Education, Career, and Social Reform Winning the Vote The 1920s: Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance The Great Depression and the New Deal Women and World War II. Postwar Women: Mixed MessagesAfrican-American Women at Mid-Century Looking Ahead 3 The Status of African Americans 1900-1950 The Nadir Renaissance Depression Conclusion 4 Pragmatism, Power, and the Politics of Aesthetic Experience Art's Special Knowledge: Identification and the Aesthetics of Cognition Identification Without Identity: Pragmatism and the Aesthetics of Contradiction Pragmatism and the Limits of Justice 5 Class and Sex in American Fiction: From Casual Laborers to Accidental Desires 6 Jazz: From the Gutter to the Mainstream. 7 French Visual Humanisms and the American StyleThe Age of the American Novel The Grammar of the Human: Ellipses and Adjectives Le Style Américain and the New Cosmopolitanism 8 Early Literary Modernism Henry James William Dean Howells Mark Twain Stephen Crane Edith Wharton Theodore Dreiser 9 Naturalism: Turn-of-the-Century Modernism 10 Money and Things: Capitalist Realism, Anxiety, and Social Critique in Works by Hemingway, Wharton, and Fitzgerald I II III IV 11 Chronic Modernism Space, Culture, Bodies: Chronic Development Micromapping: Chronic Anxiety. Conclusion: Chronic Politics12 New Regionalisms: Literature and Uneven Development Regionalism and the City, 1891-1914 A Nation of Regions, 1918-1941 Ethnic Regionalism 13 "The Possibilities of Hard-Won Land": Midwestern Modernism and the Novel Modernist Regionalism Midwestern Regions 14 Writing the Modern South 15 What Was High About Modernism? The American Novel and Modernity 16 African-American Modernisms Black Faces: Racial Masquerade and Early African-American Modernism New World Negroes: Modernism, Modernity and the Black Diaspora. Black Looks: Women of Color Facing White Modernism and Black ModernityWhite Masks: Performing Modern Blackness 17 Ethnic Modernism 18 The Proletarian Novel 19 Revolutionary Sentiments: Modern American Domestic Fiction and the Rise of the Welfare State Sentimental Activism and Welfare Reform Literary Responses 20 Lesbian Fiction 1900-1950 21 The Gay Novel in the United States 1900-1950 22 The Popular Western 23 Twentieth-Century American Crime and Detective Fiction The Interwar Years Hearts of Darkness Cold War Developments "Alternative" Subgenres and Postmodern Detection. This cutting-edge Companion is a comprehensive resource for the study of the modern American novel 19001950. Published at a time when literary modernism is being thoroughly reassessed, it reflects current investigations into the origins and character of the movement as a whole. The Companion allows students to orient individual works and authors in their principal cultural and social contexts. Contributions treat major directions in fiction, such as regionalism and the proletarian movement, for example, as well as the related practices of individual novelists; complementary essays address pertinent cultural, social, economic, and political contexts. Other pieces contribute to efforts to recover minority voices, including those of African-American novelists, and popular subgenres, such as detective fiction. Each essay is accompanied by a short bibliography directing students to major relevant scholarship for further inquiry. Taken as a whole, the volume suggests the many ways that?

This cutting-edge Companion is a comprehensive resource for the study of the modern American novel. Published at a time when literary modernism is being thoroughly reassessed, it reflects current investigations into the origins and character of the movement as a whole.

• Brings together28 original essays from leading scholars
• Allows readers to orient individual works and authors in their principal cultural and social contexts
• Contributes to efforts to recover minority voices, such as those of African American novelists, and popular subgenres, such as detective fiction
• Directs students to major relevant scholarship for further inquiry
• Suggests the many ways that "modern", "American" and "fiction" carry new meanings in the twenty-first century

Edited By John T. Matthews. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Also Available Online. Access Restricted To Authorized Users And Institutions.