Likely Stories: Essays on Political Philosophy and Contemporary American Literature, and: The Character of Truth: Historical Figures in Contemporary Fiction, and: Designs of Darkness in Contemporary American Fiction (review)

1991 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 763-766
Author(s):  
Alan Nadel
Reflexão ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Da Silva Lopes

Christopher Douglas is one of the most prominent scholars who has studied the rise of the conservative Christian Right in the American political arena and the links of this complex movement to American culture. Prof. Douglas taught at the University of Toronto and, for five years, at Furman University, South Carolina before transferring to University of Victoria in 2004. He teaches American literature, particularly contemporary American fiction, religion and literature, multicultural American literature, postmodernism, and the Bible as Literature. In the interview below, Prof. Douglas talks about his research and the idea behind his book “If God Meant to Interfere”, published in 2016; the explanatory concepts of Christian Multiculturalism and Christian Postmodernism; the spread of fake news, conspiracy theories, and alternative facts among Christian fundamentalists; the American political context. Prof. Douglas also offers interesting comments on the current Brazilian situation. His critical insights provide interesting and new perspectives that give fresh vitality to the debates about Christian fundamentalism. Prof. Douglas is committed to “public-scholar engagement” that is, research-based critical writings for non-academic audiences.Links to his public academic activity are inserted throughout the interview.


Author(s):  
Anjila Singh Mehla

<div><p><em>A most significant development that has taken place on the global literary scene during the last few decades or so is the dramatic emergence of African-American voices as a distinct and dominant force. Along with Toni Morrison scores of African American Fiction writers, poets, playwrights, autobiographers, and essayists have mapped bold new territories; they have firmly entrenched themselves in the forefront of contemporary American Literature. This article retraces this exciting literary phenomenon in the context of the lives, works, and achievements of Gloria Naylor and her contemporaries. Naylor discovered feminism and African American Literature, which revitalized her and gave her new ways to think about and define herself as a black woman.</em></p></div>


Author(s):  
Rachel Sykes

This book has argued that ‘quiet’ is a literary aesthetic, used frequently in contemporary American fiction to privilege reflection and contemplation as a way of engaging with the present. Tracing a long history of quiet in Anglo-American literature and focusing more specifically on American works published since 2000, I have argued that the contemporary American novel is quiet when its narrative is focalised through the mind of a quiet character and set in a quiet location where the protagonist has the time and space to reflect on their present moment. In many ways, New York City is a fitting location in which to end this study. In ...


1990 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 51-62
Author(s):  
Igor Maver

The name of Ernest Hemingway was first mentioned in Slovenian literary criticism by the writer and critic Tone Seliškar in 1933. Soon afterwards, Griša Koritnik, the foremost translator of English and American literatures in the period between the two wars, in his article »The Great War in the English Novel« described the protagonist of the novel A Farewell to Arms (1929) somewhat enigmatically as »the symbol of the old generation«. In a short survey of contemporary American literature, which Anton Debeljak in 1939 freely adapted from the article previously published by J. Wood Krutch in The Times,  Hemingway was grouped together with the Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck and novelist Erskine Caldwell, which is to say with the giants of the then mainstream American fiction. However, it is curious that a Slovenian reader should already from this article have learned how Hemingway, the author of »powerful stories«, had recently become monotonous, which was before he even had a fair chance to get acquainted with any of his works translated into Slovenian.


1990 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 51-62
Author(s):  
Igor Maver

The name of Ernest Hemingway was first mentioned in Slovenian literary criticism by the writer and critic Tone Seliškar in 1933. Soon afterwards, Griša Koritnik, the foremost translator of English and American literatures in the period between the two wars, in his article »The Great War in the English Novel« described the protagonist of the novel A Farewell to Arms (1929) somewhat enigmatically as »the symbol of the old generation«. In a short survey of contemporary American literature, which Anton Debeljak in 1939 freely adapted from the article previously published by J. Wood Krutch in The Times,  Hemingway was grouped together with the Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck and novelist Erskine Caldwell, which is to say with the giants of the then mainstream American fiction. However, it is curious that a Slovenian reader should already from this article have learned how Hemingway, the author of »powerful stories«, had recently become monotonous, which was before he even had a fair chance to get acquainted with any of his works translated into Slovenian.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-139
Author(s):  
Richard Stock

Abstract As a novelist, Louise Erdrich is unique in receiving both popular and critical acclaim. Strangely, her popular appeal has discouraged study of her novels as experimental narrative texts. This is unfortunate, since innovations in Erdrich’s novels rival much “experimental” contemporary American fiction. This study outlines a convention of a three-level hierarchy of characters in novels and compares this convention with two experimental American novels: Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace and Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) by Thomas Pynchon. The study then addresses Erdrich’s first novel, Love Medicine (1984), to show that it is unique in not having a main character. Although the other two experimental novels try to do without a main character, neither of them succeed at getting beyond this convention. Love Medicine innovates in at least one major narrative convention in a way that other experimental novels cannot do. This is one way in which Louise Erdrich and Love Medicine compare favorably to some of the most respected experimental contemporary American novels. Erdrich’s novels should take their place alongside other experimental American novels, being studied in similar ways, regardless of whether they are also read by a broad public audience.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 825-825
Author(s):  
Liat Ayalon ◽  
Josep Armengol ◽  
Michael Kimmel

Abstract Traditionally, gerontology research has been relatively genderless. When the intersection of age and gender was explored, this was done primarily by focusing on the experiences of older women. Much less is known about the experiences of older men. The present symposium brings together work from the humanities and the social sciences in order to explore societal images and personal experiences of aging men. The paper by Maierhofer and Ratzenböck provides a theoretical outlook on this intersection from the humanities perspective, followed by empirical applications from the social sciences. Next, Armengol uses contemporary American literature to challenge the traditional stereotype of decline in sexuality and masculinity. The paper by Ni Leime & O’Neill examines stereotypes of aging masculinities, but this time from the perspective of older men as the audience who react to their portrayal in visual culture. Finally, Ayalon and Gweyrtz-Meydan present ethical dilemmas faced by physicians who treat older men’s sexuality in light of active marketing campaigns of the pharmaceutical industry, which advocate for a model of successful aging and ongoing sexual intercourse. The discussant, Kimmel, will conceptualize the four papers by stressing the different types of information that can be obtained via different methods of inquiry. The complementary information provided by the different papers and the integration of methods and findings from the humanities with the social sciences will be discussed.


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