Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture

Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture PDF Author: Jon Lance Bacon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521445290
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture offers a radically new reading of O'Connor, who is known primarily as the creator of "universal" religious dramas. By recovering the historical context in which O'Connor wrote her fiction, Jon Lance Bacon reveals an artist deeply concerned with the issues that engaged other producers of American culture from the 1940s to the 1960s: a national identity, political anxiety, and intellectual freedom. Bacon takes an interdisciplinary approach, relating the stories and novels to political texts and sociological studies, as well as films, television programs, paintings, advertisements, editorial cartoons, and comic books. At a time when national paranoia ran high, O'Connor joined in the public discussion regarding a way of life that seemed threatened from outside - the American way of life. The discussion tended toward celebration, but O'Connor raised doubts about the quality of life within the United States. Specifically, she attacked the consumerism that cold warriors cited as evidence of American cultural superiority. The role of dissenter appealed greatly to O'Connor, and her identity as a Southern, Catholic writer - the very identity that has discouraged critics from considering her as an American writer - furnished a position from which to criticize the Cold War consensus.

Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture

Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture PDF Author: Jon Lance Bacon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521445290
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture offers a radically new reading of O'Connor, who is known primarily as the creator of "universal" religious dramas. By recovering the historical context in which O'Connor wrote her fiction, Jon Lance Bacon reveals an artist deeply concerned with the issues that engaged other producers of American culture from the 1940s to the 1960s: a national identity, political anxiety, and intellectual freedom. Bacon takes an interdisciplinary approach, relating the stories and novels to political texts and sociological studies, as well as films, television programs, paintings, advertisements, editorial cartoons, and comic books. At a time when national paranoia ran high, O'Connor joined in the public discussion regarding a way of life that seemed threatened from outside - the American way of life. The discussion tended toward celebration, but O'Connor raised doubts about the quality of life within the United States. Specifically, she attacked the consumerism that cold warriors cited as evidence of American cultural superiority. The role of dissenter appealed greatly to O'Connor, and her identity as a Southern, Catholic writer - the very identity that has discouraged critics from considering her as an American writer - furnished a position from which to criticize the Cold War consensus.

American Fiction in the Cold War

American Fiction in the Cold War PDF Author: Thomas H. Schaub
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 9780299128449
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Schaub presents American fiction in the political climate of its time. Through the 1930s, he portrays authors as typically left of center and becoming disillusioned with communism as a result of Stalin's purges and his nonaggression pact with Hitler. Subsequent authors embraced a His general discussion comes to focus on the works of Barth, O'Connor, Ellison, and Mailer. Paper edition (unseen), $12.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Cold War American Literature and the Rise of Youth Culture

Cold War American Literature and the Rise of Youth Culture PDF Author: Denis Jonnes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317649486
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Demands placed on many young Americans as a result of the Cold War give rise to an increasingly age-segregated society. This separation allowed adolescents and young adults to begin to formulate an identity distinct from previous generations, and was a significant factor in their widespread rejection of contemporary American society. This study traces the emergence of a distinctive post-war family dynamic between parent and adolescent or already adult child. In-depth readings of individual writers such as, Arthur Miller, William Styron, J. D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams, Vladimir Nabokov, Jack Kerouac, Flannery O’Connor and Sylvia Plath, situate their work in relation to the Cold War and suggest how the figuring of adolescents and young people reflected and contributed to an empowerment of American youth. This book is a superb research tool for any student or academic with an interest in youth culture, cultural studies, American studies, cold war studies, twentieth-century American literature, history of the family, and age studies.

The Critical Reception of Flannery O'Connor, 1952-2017

The Critical Reception of Flannery O'Connor, 1952-2017 PDF Author: Robert C. Evans
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1571139435
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
The first chronological overview of O'Connor criticism from the publication of her first novel, Wise Blood, in 1952 to the present.

Reconsidering Flannery O'Connor

Reconsidering Flannery O'Connor PDF Author: Alison Arant
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496831837
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Contributions by Lindsay Alexander, Alison Arant, Alicia Matheny Beeson, Eric Bennett, Gina Caison, Jordan Cofer, Doug Davis, Doreen Fowler, Marshall Bruce Gentry, Bruce Henderson, Monica C. Miller, William Murray, Carol Shloss, Alison Staudinger, and Rachel Watson The National Endowment for the Humanities has funded two Summer Institutes titled "Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor," which invited scholars to rethink approaches to Flannery O’Connor’s work. Drawing largely on research that started as part of the 2014 NEH Institute, this collection shares its title and its mission. Featuring fourteen new essays, Reconsidering Flannery O’Connor disrupts a few commonplace assumptions of O’Connor studies while also circling back to some old questions that are due for new attention. The volume opens with “New Methodologies,” which features theoretical approaches not typically associated with O’Connor’s fiction in order to gain new insights into her work. The second section, “New Contexts,” stretches expectations on literary genre, on popular archetypes in her stories, and on how we should interpret her work. The third section, lovingly called “Strange Bedfellows,” puts O’Connor in dialogue with overlooked or neglected conversation partners, while the final section, “O’Connor’s Legacy,” reconsiders her personal views on creative writing and her wishes regarding the handling of her estate upon death. With these final essays, the collection comes full circle, attesting to the hazards that come from overly relying on O’Connor’s interpretation of her own work but also from ignoring her views and desires. Through these reconsiderations, some of which draw on previously unpublished archival material, the collection attests to and promotes the vitality of scholarship on Flannery O’Connor.

Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor PDF Author: R. Neil Scott
Publisher: Timberlane Books
ISBN: 9780971542808
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1098

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Book Description


Radical Ambivalence

Radical Ambivalence PDF Author: Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
Publisher: Fordham University Press
ISBN: 0823288250
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Radical Ambivalence is the first book-length study of Flannery O’Connor’s attitude toward race in her fiction and correspondence. It is also the first study to include controversial material from unpublished letters that reveals the complex and troubling nature of O’Connor’s thoughts on the subject. O’Connor lived and did most of her writing in her native Georgia during the tumultuous years of the civil rights movement. In one of her letters, O’Connor frankly expresses her double-mindedness regarding the social and political upheaval taking place in the United States with regard to race: “I hope that to be of two minds about some things is not to be neutral.” Radical Ambivalence explores this double-mindedness and how it manifests itself in O’Connor’s fiction.

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Flannery O'Connor

Approaches to Teaching the Works of Flannery O'Connor PDF Author: Robert Donahoo
Publisher: Modern Language Association
ISBN: 1603294074
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Known for her violent, startling stories that culminate in moments of grace, Flannery O'Connor depicted the postwar segregated South from a unique perspective. This volume proposes strategies for introducing students to her Roman Catholic aesthetic, which draws on concepts such as incarnation and original sin, and offers alternative contexts for reading her work. Part 1, "Materials," describes resources that provide a grounding in O'Connor's work and life. The essays in part 2, "Approaches," discuss her beliefs about writing and her distinctive approach to fiction and religion; introduce fresh perspectives, including those of race, class, gender, and interdisciplinary approaches; highlight her craft as a creative writer; and suggest pairings of her works with other texts. Alice Walker's short story "Convergence" is included as an appendix.

Flannery O’Connor and the Perils of Governing by Tenderness

Flannery O’Connor and the Perils of Governing by Tenderness PDF Author: Jerome C. Foss
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498532608
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Flannery O’Connor’s fiction continues to haunt American readers, in part because of its uncanny ability to remind us who we are and what we need. Foss’s book reveals the extent to which O’Connor was a serious reader of the history of political philosophy. She understood the ideas upon which the American regime rests, and she evaluated those ideas from the standpoint of both faith and reason. Foss’s book explains why O’Connor feared that the modern habit to govern by tenderness would lead to terror. After a thorough account of her familiarity with the history of political philosophy, Foss shows how the works of Plato, Aristotle, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Machiavelli, Locke, Rousseau, and Nietzsche inform O’Connor’s stories. This does not mean that O’Connor was writing about politics in the narrow sense. Her vision was deeply theological, and she carefully avoided topical stories that promote social agendas. Her concern was with the health of the American regime more broadly, insofar as the manners of a regime affect citizens’ attitudes toward religion. O’Connor does not present a political theory of her own, but as Foss argues, she was a political philosopher in the original sense of the word. Her stories give clear accounts of her political wisdom. Foss further shows the continued relevance of her wisdom in age dominated by abstract modern theories, such as that of John Rawls.

Literary Cold War, 1945 to Vietnam

Literary Cold War, 1945 to Vietnam PDF Author: Adam Piette
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748635289
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This is a ground-breaking study of the psychological and cultural impact of the Cold War on the imaginations of citizens in the UK and US. The Literary Cold War examines writers working at the hazy borders between aesthetic project and political allegory, with specific attention being paid to Vladimir Nabokov and Graham Greene as Cold War writers. The book looks at the special relationship as a form of paranoid plotline governing key Anglo-American texts from Storm Jameson to Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, as well as examining the figure of the non-aligned neutral observer caught up in the sacrificial triangles structuring cold war fantasy. The book aims to consolidate and define a new emergent field in literary studies, the literary Cold War, following the lead of prominent historians of the period.