Literature’s Vexed Democratization

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Grossman ◽  
Juliana Spahr ◽  
Stephanie Young
Keyword(s):  
Racial Difference ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Black Writers ◽  
Barriers To Entry ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Educational Barriers ◽  
Online Technologies ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of

Abstract This article examines the contradictions of the contemporary literary field that appears both increasingly capacious and more exclusionary than in the past. Discussing the expansion of publishing enabled by digital and online technologies, we note that these changes did not reshape the demographics of most published works in the US, which remain overwhelmingly white authored. We then turn to literary prizes as an indicator of who writes prestige literature, narrating the twentieth-century formation of a racially segregated field and its slow changes against the backdrop of publishing overproduction. Combining a history of prestige literary culture with a demographic analysis of prizewinning writers (1918–2019), we discuss how a mostly white, New Critic-dominated field became the much more diverse and wide-ranging scene of the present. While this area has importantly opened up to writers of different backgrounds, our data show that the inequities of earlier prizegiving now take shape as drastic educational barriers to entry. Observing that a great deal of contemporary literature dramatizes the peculiarity of performing racial difference—often under the auspices of white audiences—we argue that the path to “excellence” has never been more narrow for writers who are not white, and Black writers in particular.

Radicals and Rebels

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dauvergne
Keyword(s):  
September 11 ◽  
War On Terrorism ◽  
Business Associations ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
State Security ◽  
Environmental Ngos ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
History Of

This chapter adds to the book’s understanding of the shifting nature and great challenges confronting environmentalism, especially more radical strands. A glance at the history of Greenpeace reveals sharp differences as the organization was forming in the 1970s; even today the activism of Paul Watson, who left Greenpeace to spearhead the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, draws the ire of Greenpeace leaders. Since the war on terrorism took root after September 11, 2001, radical activists such as Watson have been increasingly marginalized, with the US government even declaring him an “eco-terrorist.” As this chapter notes, though, many environmentalists who challenge state and business interests face even greater threats, with hundreds murdered over the past two decades. State security agencies are not the only group sidelining radical environmentalists, however; so are business associations, media outlets, and mainstream environmental NGOs.

Living Legacies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Varzally
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Racial Difference ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of

This chapter tracks the assimilation of adopted Vietnamese and Amerasians through the 1970s and 1980s amid contested memories about wars in Southeast Asia, conceptions of identity, and ideas of community. It traces how they have interpreted their own histories since the 1990s through social media, memoirs, documentaries, reunions, conferences, and calls to Congress. I doing so, they changed the public’s thinking of the past, exposing a history of racial difference, violence, and dislocation.

scholarly journals The Adaptability Paradox: Constitutional Resilience and Principles of Good Government in Twenty-First-Century America

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 354-369
Author(s):  
Stephen Skowronek ◽  
Karen Orren
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Structural Approach ◽  
First Century ◽  
Institutional Adaptation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
Good Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Twenty First Century

Faith in the resilience of the US Constitution prompts many observers to discount evidence of a deepening crisis of governance in our day. A long history of success in navigating tough times and adapting to new circumstances instills confidence that the fundamentals of the system are sound and the institutions self-correcting. The aim of this article is to push assessments of this sort beyond the usual nod to great crises surmounted in the past and to identify institutional adaptation as a developmental problem worthy of study in its own right. To that end, we call attention to dynamics of adjustment that have played out over the long haul. Our historical-structural approach points to the “bounded resilience” of previous adaptations and to dynamics of reordering conditioned on the operation of other governance outside the Constitution’s formal written arrangements. We look to the successive overthrow of these other incongruous elements and to the serial incorporation of previously excluded groups to posit increasing stress on constitutional forms and greater reliance on principles for support of new institutional arrangements. Following these developments into the present, we find principles losing traction, now seemingly unable to foster new rules in support of agreeable governing arrangements. Our analysis generates a set of propositions about why the difficulties of our day might be different from those of the past in ways that bear directly on resilience and adaptability going forward.

scholarly journals Persistent farmland imaginaries: celebration of fertile soil and the recurrent ignorance of climate

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oane Visser
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Fertile Soil ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Climatic Risks

Abstract This article looks at how imaginaries of land and climate play a role in farmland investment discourses and practices. Foreign farmland investors in the fertile black earth region of Russia and Ukraine have ‘celebrated’ soil fertility while largely ignoring climatic factors. The article shows a centuries-long history of outsiders coming to the region lured by the fertile soils, while grossly underestimating climate which has had disastrous implications for farm viability and the environment. Comparisons with historical and contemporary literature on other regions (e.g. the US prairies and North Africa) suggest that the underestimation of climatic risks by newcomers is remarkably prevalent in resource frontiers.

scholarly journals Complementary medicine use in US adults with a history of colorectal cancer: a nationally representative survey

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 271-278
Author(s):  
Charlene HL Wong ◽  
Tobias Sundberg ◽  
Vincent CH Chung ◽  
Petra Voiss ◽  
Holger Cramer
Keyword(s):  
Colorectal Cancer ◽  
Cancer Survivors ◽  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Complementary Medicine ◽  
Medicine Use ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Mind Body Medicine ◽  
Colorectal Cancer Patients

Abstract Background In the USA, colorectal cancer is among the top diagnosed cancers. The current study specifically targets the US adult population that have a history of colorectal cancer. Methods We used the 2017 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) to investigate the prevalence and predictors of colorectal cancer survivors using complementary medicine in the past 12 months in a representative sample of the US population (N = 26,742). We descriptively analyzed the 12-month prevalence of any complementary medicine use separately for individuals with a prior diagnosis of colorectal cancer and those without. Using chi-squared tests and backward stepwise multiple logistic regression analyses, we identified predictors of complementary medicine use in the past 12 months. Results A weighted total of 1,501,481 US adults (0.6%) had a history of colorectal cancer. More individuals without (weighted n = 76,550,503; 31.2%) than those with a history of colorectal cancer (weighted n = 410,086; 27.3%) had used complementary medicine. The most commonly used complementary medicine among colorectal cancer patients was mind-body medicine, followed by chiropractic. A higher prevalence of complementary medicine use was associated with being female, higher educated and/or living in the US Midwest or South. Conclusions In this study, over one fourth of the US colorectal cancer survivors had used complementary medicine. Mind-body medicine was found to be the most commonly used. With evidence supporting the effectiveness and safety of mind-body medicine use among colorectal cancer patients, promoting the use of evidence-based mind-body medicine for colorectal cancer management could be considered.

Why the intellectually disabled in the Evans case continue to hold the DC government neglectful after 40 years: a history of differing views about disability rights

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby Terrar
Keyword(s):  
National Government ◽  
District Court ◽  
Disability Rights ◽  
Intellectually Disabled ◽  
Gainful Employment ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis article is about Washington, DC’s intellectually disabled and the history of their struggle for habilitation rights, which for them includes gainful employment and having a family. Against them has been a conservative local and national government and the US District Court in its rulings over the past 40 years in the

Homer's Use of the Past

1929 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-159
Author(s):  
H. L. Lorimer
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Present Form ◽  
Present Writer ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
The Past ◽  
Systematic Examination ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

Of the sources of Homer in the literary sense we can know nothing. There is no antecedent, no contemporary literature extant; and no analysis of later works will yield anything that can be proved to represent a literary tradition earlier than Homer. Archaeology, however, which has made the origins of Hellenic culture in some degree intelligible, has at least furnished a solid stage and a veritable background for the action of the Iliad. How much did Homer know of the past? A systematic examination of the archaeological data which the poems offer suggests that he knew a great deal; knew it with a precision which cannot be explained away as fortuitous, and about so remote a past that we must postulate a stream of tradition traceable much further back than the siege of Troy. For the purposes of this paper Homer means the author of the Iliad in substantially its present form, whose floruit the present writer would not put earlier than the ninth century, and the term is used, without prejudice, for the author of the Odyssey also. Eratosthenes' date of 1184 for the fall of Troy is assumed less because it came to be accepted as the standard date in antiquity than because it fits so well into what we know of the history of the Mediterranean world at that time.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alys Moody
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Postcolonial Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

This book has traced a history of modernism’s decline and of its doubters. In post-Vichy France, the US circa 1968, and late apartheid South Africa, modernism’s fate was precarious, its reputation tarnished, and its politics reviled. The inescapability of the political in these contexts compromised the structural conditions of the autonomous literary field on which modernism had been built. In turn, it threw into crisis the philosophical defense of autonomy and the literary legacies of modernism, which grew out of and were guaranteed by this autonomous literary field. The stories we tell about late twentieth-century literary history reflect this dilemma. According to received wisdom, the period between 1945 and 1990 saw postmodernism replace modernism in both literature and scholarship, and new waves of postcolonial literature and theory discredited the Eurocentric specter of modernism. ...

Representation

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry M. Bartels ◽  
Joshua D. Clinton ◽  
John G. Geer
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Far Right ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multi Stage ◽  
The Us ◽  
Jim Crow Era ◽  
History Of

We examine the history of political representation in the United States using a multi-stage statistical analysis of the changing relationship between roll call votes in the US House of Representatives and the preferences of citizens (as measured by presidential votes). We show that members of Congress have become considerably more responsive to constituents’ preferences over the past 40 years, reversing a half-century drought in responsiveness stemming from the South’s one-party Jim Crow era. However, the House as a whole has become less representative, veering too far left when Democrats are in the majority and too far right when Republicans are.

Molecular Psychology

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Turhan Canli
Keyword(s):  
Life Experience ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Regulatory Mechanisms ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
The Past ◽  
Human Volunteers ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
History Of ◽  
Brain And Behavior ◽  
And Behavior

Molecular psychology is the study of behavior and its underlying brain systems using the tools of molecular biology. Although a variety of biological tools have been used to discover the relation of brain and behavior since the beginning of psychology, these have largely been confined to nonhuman animal models or brain-damaged patients. Technical advances in the past two decades in molecular genetics and in noninvasive brain imaging have transformed the field. These advances made it possible to conduct detailed examinations—across all species and subjects including healthy human volunteers—of the relation among genes, brains, and behavior; gene-by-environment (G×E) interactions; and the underlying regulatory mechanisms of gene expression through life experience and other environmental variables. This chapter provides a brief history of the major milestones of this field, along with updates from the contemporary literature, and introduces the reader to the contents of this volume.

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