The Politics Of Southern Pastoral Literature 1785 1885

In The Politics of Southern Pastoral Literature, 1785-1885: Jeffersonian Afterlives, Peter Templeton presents a wide-ranging and systematic evaluation of pastoral in the nineteenth-century Southern novel, offering an explicit appraisal of the philosophical and political rationale of pastoral literature alongside the existing body of research into the image of Jefferson following his death. Rather than assuming a homogeneous South, Templeton locates Southern pastoral in its specific political context, offering readings of significant factors such as the literary representation of landscape, of class and the yeoman ideal, and the institution of slavery and its intellectual underpinnings. Focusing on a six key Southern authors, both canonical and relatively understudied, the book charts key transformations in the politics of pastoral literature in the period, and noteworthy reconfigurations in the representation of Jefferson and his philosophies, in order to analyze what these signified to nineteenth-century Americans. In doing so, the text also demonstrates how ideologies react to the stresses imposed on them by political realities.

In The Politics of Southern Pastoral Literature, 1785–1885: Jeffersonian Afterlives, Peter Templeton presents a wide-ranging and systematic evaluation of pastoral in the nineteenth-century Southern novel, offering an explicit appraisal of the philosophical and political rationale of pastoral literature alongside the existing body of research into the image of Jefferson following his death. Rather than assuming a homogeneous South, Templeton locates Southern pastoral in its specific political context, offering readings of significant factors such as the literary representation of landscape, of class and the yeoman ideal, and the institution of slavery and its intellectual underpinnings. Focusing on a six key Southern authors, both canonical and relatively understudied, the book charts key transformations in the politics of pastoral literature in the period, and noteworthy reconfigurations in the representation of Jefferson and his philosophies, in order to analyze what these signified to nineteenth-century Americans. In doing so, the text also demonstrates how ideologies react to the stresses imposed on them by political realities.

Pathologizing Black Bodies reconsiders the black body as a site of cultural and corporeal interchange; one involving violence and oppression, leaving memory and trauma sedimented in cultural conventions, political arrangements, social institutions and, most significantly, materially and symbolically engraved upon the body, with “the self” often deprived of agency and sovereignty. Consisting of three parts, this study focuses on works of the twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction and cultural narratives by mainly African American authors, aiming to highlight the different ways in which race has been pathologized in America and examine how the legacies of plantation ideology have been metaphorically inscribed on black bodies. The variety of analytical approaches and thematic foci with respect to theories and discourses surrounding race and the body allow us to delve into this thorny territory in the hope of gaining perspectives about how African American lives are still shaped and haunted by the legacies of plantation slavery. Furthermore, this volume offers insights into the politics of eugenic corporeality in an illustrative dialogue with the lasting carceral and agricultural effects of life on a plantation. Tracing the degradation and suppression of the black body, both individual and social, this study includes an analysis of the pseudo-scientific discourse of social Darwinism and eugenics; the practice of mass incarceration and the excessive punishment of black bodies; and food apartheid and USDA practices of depriving black farmers of individual autonomy and collective agency. Based on such an interplay of discourses, methodologies and perspectives, this volume aims to use literature to further examine the problematic relationship between race and the body and stress that black lives do indeed matter in the United States.

Fresh perspectives and eye-opening discussions of contemporary American fiction In The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction: 1980-2020, a team of distinguished scholars delivers a focused and in-depth collection of essays on some of the most significant and influential authors and literary subjects of the last four decades. Cutting-edge entries from established and new voices discuss subjects as varied as multiculturalism, contemporary regionalisms, realism after poststructuralism, indigenous narratives, globalism, and big data in the context of American fiction from the last 40 years. The Encyclopedia provides an overview of American fiction at the turn of the millennium as well as a vision of what may come. It perfectly balances analysis, summary, and critique for an illuminating treatment of the subject matter. This collection also includes: An exciting mix of established and emerging contributors from around the world discussing central and cutting-edge topics in American fiction studies Focused, critical explorations of authors and subjects of critical importance to American fiction Topics that reflect the energies and tendencies of contemporary American fiction from the forty years between 1980 and 2020 The Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Fiction: 1980-2020 is a must-have resource for undergraduate and graduate students of American literature, English, creative writing, and fiction studies. It will also earn a place in the libraries of scholars seeking an authoritative array of contributions on both established and newer authors of contemporary fiction.

This study of Kevin Smith’s debut film breaks new ground by exploring how Clerks sits at the intersection of political and cultural trends relevant to alternative youth cultures in the early 1990s. Clerks (1994) was born of and appeals to a specific youth subculture, with the multimedia ‘View Askewniverse’ developing out of the film’s initial release. Drawing on existing texts and movements such as Richard Linklater’s Slacker (1991), Douglas Coupland’s novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture and alternative rock subcultures that had developed during and since the 1980s, the film presents a comedic take on working as a young person in 1990s America in a manner that was praised for its authenticity. Filmed on a miniscule budget, the roughness of the film’s aesthetic, combined with a hard rock soundtrack comprised of mostly independent bands, convinced many that it could speak for young Americans, much more than polished, corporate Hollywood productions. The book situates the film within this wider cultural movement and cultural zeitgeist and explores the role of working-class youth and employment in the years following Reaganomics and its consequences, as well as providing insight into the film’s presentation of consumption and of its representation of masculinity and sexuality. Clear, concise and comprehensive, the book is ideal for students, scholars and those with an interest in youth cinema, American independent film, Cult Film, Subcultures and Counterculture, as well as both Film and American Studies more broadly.

Violence from Slavery to #BlackLivesMatter brings together perspectives on violence and its representation in African American history from slavery to the present moment. Contributors explore how violence, signifying both an instrument of the white majority’s power and a modality of black resistance, has been understood and articulated in primary materials that range from slave narrative through "lynching plays" and Richard Wright’s fiction to contemporary activist poetry, and from photography of African American suffering through Blaxploitation cinema and Spike Lee’s films to rap lyrics and performances. Diverse both in their period coverage and their choice of medium for discussion, the 11 essays are unified by a shared concern to unpack violence’s multiple meanings for black America. Underlying the collection, too, is not only the desire to memorialize past moments of black American suffering and resistance, but, in politically timely fashion, to explore their connections to our current conjuncture.

"Southerners' search for a stable identity and their at times fierce defense of slavery were, according to Grammer, a response to what J. G. A. Pocock has called "the Machiavellian moment" in republican cultures - the moment when the republic is made to recognize its finitude in time. He maintains that we can best understand our antebellum southern writers by thinking of them not as the unwitting ancestors of Faulkner, but as the fully self-conscious contemporaries of Emerson and Whitman, the heirs of Jefferson and Hamilton - as citizens of a young republic facing what looked more and more like its imminent demise." "With increasing mechanization and westward expansion transforming their formerly stable world, all antebellum Americans lived in a Machiavellian moment, and as Grammer deftly demonstrates, the long effort to mold the South into a symbol of order, like Whitman's search for a suitably symbolic America, must be understood in relation to that condition. A major, innovative contribution to the fields of both southern history and southern literary criticism, Pastoral and Politics in the Old South is a valuable volume for all students of the South."--BOOK JACKET.

Examines how the lives of pastoralists in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia are deeply affected by the creation of mutually exclusive ethnic territories and proposes ways to reverse this trend.