America(n) Matters (eBook)

Selected Essays

Michael Mitchell, Markus Wierschem (Herausgeber)

Peter Freese (Autor)

eBook Download: PDF

2018 | 1. Auflage
599 Seiten
Universitätsverlag Winter
978-3-8253-7777-9 (ISBN)

Infos

This anthology brings together 21 of the more than 200 articles and essays published between 1977 and 2017 by Professor Peter Freese from the University of Paderborn, one of the most distinguished authorities on American literature and culture within Germany and beyond. Arranged in four broad thematic sections covering the 'matters of America', the essays range widely across a vista of subjects, writers, concepts and contexts, from the evolution of the American Dream to the visions of end times as apocalypse or entropic decay, from the corrupt glitter of Hollywood to the ancient mysteries of mythic landscapes, from literary classics to hip hop. He convincingly shows how the study of arts, particularly literature, gives privileged access to the kaleidoscopic diversity of American society, opening up incomparable panoramas and fascinating insights. An indispensible aid to the scholar but also accessible to the general reader, these essays show how the study of America matters.

Inhalt

Cover 1
Titel 4
Imprint 5
Table of Contents 6
Introduction: America(n) Matters?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 8
Europe and the American Dream 18
“Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way”: The "translatio"-Concept in Popular American Writing and Painting 18
The American Dream?????????????????????????????????????????????????? 54
Fett, sauber und versoffen: Zu drei zeitlosen Konstanten des amerikanischen Deutschlandbildes 78
Americans in Europe???????????????????????????????????????????????????? 102
The Two Cultures: Literature and Science 122
From the Apocalyptic to the Entropic End: From Hope to Despair to New Hope? 122
From “Entropy” to "The Crying of Lot 49": Thomas Pynchon and the Entropic End 150
Invented Religions as Sense-Making Systems in Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels 180
Science and Technology in Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 204
Surviving the End: Apocalypse, Evolution, and Entropy in Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut, and Thomas Pynchon 228
Changing Forms and Shifting Perspectives 244
Die Story ist tot, es lebe die Story: Von der Short Story über die Anti-Story zur Meta-Story der Gegenwart 244
Doctorow’s “Criminals of Perception,” or What Has Happened to the Historical Novel 274
Universality vs. Ethnocentricity, or the Literary Canon in a Multicultural Society
Teaching American Multiculturalism through Stories about ‘Growing Up Ethnic’ 320
Textual Kaleidoscopes: American Identities 352
Bret Easton Ellis: From "Less Than Zero" (1985) to "Imperial Bedrooms" (2010) 352
Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”: A New Anthem to New York City? 402
Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Vietnam War: Sam Hughes’s Quest in Bobbie Ann Mason’s "In Country" (1985) 424
Leslie Marmon Silko’s "Ceremony" (1977): Universality versus Ethnocentrism 452
Joe Leaphorn as a Cultural Mediator in Tony Hillerman’s Mysteries 494
Trouble in the House of Fiction: Bernard Malamud’s "The Tenants" (1971) 518
A Medieval Crusader in Twentieth-Century New Orleans: John Kennedy Toole’s "A Confederacy of Dunces" (1980) 534
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s "The Tortilla Curtain" (1995): A Case Study in the Genesis of Xenophobia 572
Reprint Notices???????????????????????????????????????????? 599
Backcover 601

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 18.1.2018
• Sprache: deutsch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft
• ISBN-10: 3-8253-7777-6 / 3825377776
• ISBN-13: 978-3-8253-7777-9 / 9783825377779