American Cultural Rebels

Artistic vanguards plot new aesthetic movements, print controversial magazines, hold provocative art shows, and stage experimental theatrical and musical performances. These revolutionaries have often helped create America's countercultural movements, from the early romantics and bohemians to the beatniks and hippies. This work looks at how experimental art and the avant-garde artists' lifestyles have influenced, and at times transformed, American culture since the mid-nineteenth century. The work will introduce readers to these artists and rebels, making a careful distinction between the worlds of the high modern artist (salons and galleries) and the bohemian.

"This significant contribution to German history pioneers a conceptually sophisticated approach to German-German relations. Poiger has much to say about the construction of both gender norms and masculine and feminine identities, and she has valuable insights into the role that notions of race played in defining and reformulating those identities and prescriptive behaviors in the German context. The book will become a 'must read' for German historians."—Heide Fehrenbach, author of Cinema in Democratizing Germany "Poiger breaks new ground in this history of the postwar Germanies. The book will serve as a model for all future studies of comparative German-German history."—Robert G. Moeller, author of Protecting Motherhood "Jazz, Rock, and Rebels exemplifies the exciting work currently emerging out of transnational analyses. [A] well-written and well-argued study."—Priscilla Wald, author of Constituting Americans

Many black strategies of daily resistance have been obscured--until now. Race rebels, argues Kelley, have created strategies of resistance, movements, and entire subcultures. Here, for the first time, everyday race rebels are given the historiographical attention they deserve, from the Jim Crow era to the present.

Investigates the appropriation of black popular culture as a symbol of rebellion in postwar Germany

The figure of the rebel of the 1950s shaped the imagination of the American post-war generation. Yet the notoriety of the rebel resides uneasily beside that of the conformist, ironically one of the other central figures of the decade. This collection of essays, which originated at an international conference in Trier, Germany, in 2005, sets out to explain the multiple representations of rebellion and affirmation in 1950s American culture. It explores the ways in which rebellion was 'contained' and also disruptive during this pivotal decade of American ascendance on the global scene. In a series of essays written by prominent American Studies scholars in the United States and Germany, the collection explores the meaning of rebellion in the 1950s and its role in shaping theological, literary and cultural discourses.

"With the incredible popularity of Michael Moore's books and movies, and the continuing success of anti-consumer critiques like ADBUSTERS and Naomi Klien's NO LOGO, it is hard to ignore the growing tide of resistance to the corporate-dominated world. But do these vocal opponents of the status quo offer us a real political alternative?" "In this work of cultural criticism, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter shatter the central myth of radical political, economic and cultural thinking. The idea of a counterculture, a world outside the consumer-dominated one that encompasses us, pervades everything from the anti-globalization movement to feminism and environmentalism. And the idea that mocking the system, or trying to 'jam' it so it will collapse, they argue, is not only counterproductive but has helped to create the very consumer society that radicals oppose." "In a blend of pop culture, history and philosophical analysis, Heath and Potter offer a startling, clear picture of what a concern for social justice might look like without the confusion of the counterculture obsession with being different."--Book jacket.

"This significant contribution to German history pioneers a conceptually sophisticated approach to German-German relations. Poiger has much to say about the construction of both gender norms and masculine and feminine identities, and she has valuable insights into the role that notions of race played in defining and reformulating those identities and prescriptive behaviors in the German context. The book will become a 'must read' for German historians."--Heide Fehrenbach, author of Cinema in Democratizing Germany "Poiger breaks new ground in this history of the postwar Germanies. The book will serve as a model for all future studies of comparative German-German history."--Robert G. Moeller, author of Protecting Motherhood "Jazz, Rock, and Rebels exemplifies the exciting work currently emerging out of transnational analyses. [A] well-written and well-argued study."--Priscilla Wald, author of Constituting Americans

American Rebels is an anthology of specially commissioned essays by leading American writers that attempt to reconcile authentic patriotism with original artistic creation, unpopular opinion, and real moral principles that don't change with the winds. It includes rebels in politics, education, journalism, religion, literature, film, sports, music, law, popular culture, and social struggle. These are real rebels against conformity, commercialism, racism, oligarchy, the bogus conventional wisdom, stacked decks, and sacred cows. The Americans celebrated don't fit under any one ideology or party. They are too free-spirited to be categorized, belonging to a continuum of conviction and creation in our tangled national history. Some, like Walt Whitman, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, and Frank Sinatra, are famous. Others are less well known but have earned a broad appreciation; among them are Sam Fuller, Paul O'Dwyer, and Mike Harrington. Still others like Edward Abbey, Benjamin Mays, and Bill Hicks are almost cult figures—revered by a small, intense following. Others have faded from memory, like Margaret Sanger and Clarence Darrow, and deserve a new shaft of sunlight. This groundbreaking collection includes original essays by Pete Hamill, Stanley Crouch, Budd Schulberg, Danny Goldberg, J. Hoberman, Patricia Bosworth, Tom Hayden, Steve Earle, and others.