scholarly journals Genre, Computation, and the Varieties of Twentieth-Century U.S. Fiction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Wilkens
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Fiction ◽  
Contemporary Fiction ◽  
World War ◽  
Detective Story ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Textual Content

Is "literary fiction" a useful genre label in the post-World War II United States? In some sense, the answer is obviously yes; there are sections marked "literary fiction" on Amazon, in bookstores, and on Goodreads, all of which contain many postwar and contemporary titles. Much of what is taught in contemporary fiction classes also falls under the heading of literary fiction, even if that label isn't always used explicitly. On the other hand, literary fiction, if it hangs together at all, may be defined as much by its (or its consumers') resistance to genre as by its positive textual content. That is, where conventional genres like the detective story or the erotic romance are recognizable by the presence of certain character types, plot events, and narrative styles, it is difficult to find any broadly agreeable set of such features by which literary fiction might be consistently identified.

Bonds and Barriers

2021 ◽  
pp. 260-294
Author(s):  
Thomas A. Guglielmo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
World War ◽  
Enlisted Personnel ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Chapter 7 follows nonblack minorities through their training and service in the United States. America’s World War II military, from its top leaders to its enlisted personnel, simultaneously built and blurred a white-nonwhite divide alongside its black-white one. On the one hand, the blurring stemmed from a host of factors, including the day-to-day intermingling of troops, the activism of nonblack minorities, and, paradoxically, the unifying power of the black-white divide among nonblacks. On the other hand, this blurring had its limits. White-nonwhite lines cropped up in some of the same places black-white ones did and in some different ones, too, especially those related to national security and Japanese Americans. In the end, these lines remained in place throughout the war years, despite continuous blurring. They did so in part because of these racialized national security concerns and because of the power of civilian racist practices and investments.

Der Baum und das Raster

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-19
Author(s):  
Philippe Descola
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Structural Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
Original Form ◽  
World War ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Biological Form ◽  
The One

Claude Levi-Strauss mentioned several times in his work that the notion of transformation is the keystone of the structural analysis he pratices. By his own admission, this notion stems from his reading of D’Arcy Thomson’s book On Growth and Form during World War II in the United States. But Levi-Strauss makes use of two very different meanings of transformation, relating to two distinct morpho-genetic traditions. On the one hand, he is inspired by Goethe’s Morphology. All forms can be seen as transformation of a Urform, an original form, from which they grow out like a tree. But on the other hand, D’Arcy Thomson’s emphasis lies on the geometric simplicity of a transformation grid that allows the transition from one biological form to the other without considering any original from which other forms would be derivable. Levi-Strauss’ epistemological choice to study myths and masks can be better understood when his concept of transformation is clearly defined in relation to Goethe and D’Arcy Thomson. Thus, the originality of his own interpretation will become clear

scholarly journals Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish as Determinants of Identity: As Illustrated in the Jewish Press of the First Half of the Twentieth Century

2016 ◽  
pp. 79-103
Author(s):  
Izabela Olszewska ◽  
Aleksandra Twardowska
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Jewish Diaspora ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish as Determinants of Identity: As Illustrated in the Jewish Press of the First Half of the Twentieth CenturyThe paper shows an image and functions of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish languages among Jewish Diaspora groups – the Balkan Sephardim and the Ashkenazim (the Ostjuden group) – in the period from the beginning of the twentieth century until the outbreak of World War II. The study is based on the articles from Jewish weeklies, magazines and newspapers from pre-war Bosnia and Hercegovina and from Germany/Poland. It demonstrates a double-sided attitude towards the languages. On the one hand – an image of the languages as determinants of Jewish identity. Touching on this theme, the authors of the paper also try to highlight the images of Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish and as determinants in a narrower sense – of the Sephardi/Ashkenazi identity in that period. On the other hand, the paper shows a tendency to treat the languages as “corrupted” and “dying” languages, and as factors slowing down the assimilation of Jewish groups and also as an obstacle for Zionist ideologies. Języki jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpański jako wskaźniki tożsamości – na przykładzie żydowskich tekstów prasowych pierwszej połowy XX wiekuArtykuł ukazuje obraz i funkcje języków jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpańskiego wśród żydowskich grup diasporowych – bałkańskich Sefardyjczyków oraz Aszkenazyjczyków (Ostjuden) – w okresie od początków wieku XX do wybuchu II wojny światowej. Opis oparty jest na artykułach z żydowskich magazynów, tygodników, prasy codziennej z przedwojennej Bośni i Hercegowiny oraz Niemiec/Polski. Ukazany jest ambiwalentny stosunek wobec języków. Z jednej strony – obraz języków jako wskaźników żydowskiej tożsamości, jak również obraz jidysz i żydowsko-hiszpańskiego jako wskaźników tożsamości w węższym ujęciu: tożsamości sefardyjskiej/aszkenazyjskiej w omawianym okresie. Z drugiej strony zaś – artykuł zwraca uwagę także na to, że oba języki były traktowane jako „zepsute”, „umierające” i stanowiące czynniki spowalniające asymilację grup żydowskich oraz przeszkodę dla idei syjonistycznych.

In Defense of Justice

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen H. Tamura
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Concentration Camps ◽  
Japanese Americans ◽  
Japanese American ◽  
World War ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

As a leading dissident in the World War II concentration camps for Japanese Americans, Joseph Yoshisuke Kurihara stands out as an icon of Japanese American resistance. In this biography, Kurihara's life provides a window into the history of Japanese Americans during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Hawaiʻi to Japanese parents who immigrated to work on the sugar plantations, Kurihara was transformed by the forced removal and incarceration of ethnic Japanese during World War II. As an inmate at Manzanar in California, Kurihara became one of the leaders of a dissident group within the camp and was implicated in “the Manzanar incident,” a serious civil disturbance that erupted on December 6, 1942. In 1945, after three years and seven months of incarceration, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and boarded a ship for Japan, never to return to the United States. Shedding light on the turmoil within the camps as well as the sensitive and formerly unspoken issue of citizenship renunciation among Japanese Americans, this book explores one man's struggles with the complexities of loyalty and dissent.

Brainstorming Revisited

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-69
Author(s):  
Claudia Mareis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Creativity Research ◽  
Human Creativity ◽  
Self Actualization ◽  
History Of

This article discusses a particular strand in the history of creativity in the mid-twentieth century shaped by an instrumental, production-oriented understanding of the term. When the field of creativity research emerged in the United States after World War II, debates around creativity were driven not only by humanist intents of self-actualization but also by the aim of rendering individual creative potentials productive for both society and economy. Creativity was thus defined in terms of not mere novelty and originality but utility and productivity. There was a strong interest, too, in methods and techniques that promised to systematically enhance human creativity. In this context, the article looks at the formation of brainstorming, a group-based creativity method that came into fashion in the United States around 1950. It discusses how this method had been influenced by concepts of human productivity developed and applied during World War II and prior to it. Using the brainstorming method as a case in point, this article aims not only to shed light on the quite uncharted history of creativity in the mid-twentieth century, but also to stress the conducive role of allegedly trivial creativity methods in the rise of what sociologist Andreas Reckwitz has identified as the “creativity dispositif”: a seemingly playful, but indeed rigid, imperative in post-Fordist and neoliberal societies that demand the constant production of innovative outcomes under flexible, yet self-exploitative working conditions.

Von der „Säuberung“ zum Generalpardon: Die Entnazifizierung der westdeutschen Wirtschaft

2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralf Ahrens
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Comprehensive Investigation ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Party Members ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
The One

AbstractImmediately following World War II, the allied occupational powers started a process of denazifying West German business in more or less the same way as the political and administrative apparatus. Initial approaches to solve the task by a radical purge of highly incriminated company managers soon gave way to more extensive investigations of party members and Nazi sympathizers also on lower ranks. Denazification escalated into bureaucratic mass procedures and finally ended up in various forms of amnesty and pardon in the late 1940s and early 1950s. A key feature in this process was the successively growing participation of German actors like various commissions, chambers of commerce and the companies themselves. On the one hand, comprehensive investigation and punishment under a re-installed rule of law had to rely upon cooperation of German actors and their expertise on the reality of the Nazi past; on the other hand, the integration of business itself into denazification procedures allowed company managers to benefit from informational advantages. Focussing the interaction between denazification authorities and business in the three West German zones of occupation, the article argues that under the general conditions of economic reconstruction and democratization the degeneration from purge to pardon was hardly avoidable, but that nevertheless the effects of temporary punishments should not be underestimated.

Humanism and Class

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sikivu Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Class Analysis ◽  
White Population ◽  
World War ◽  
Class Politics ◽  
The Us ◽  
Changing Demographics

Although early twentieth century humanist discourse was informed by an explicit emphasis on class and socioeconomic redress, contemporary iterations within “organized humanism” have been less definitive. In the post–World War II era, humanist scholars and activists have taken diverse approaches to connecting organized humanism and humanist discourse with class politics and class analyses. Changing demographics in the United States, including the rise of “Religious Nones” and the US shift from a majority white population, may play a prominent role in clarifying the nexus between humanism and class analysis.

The FBI Helped to Define the Twentieth-Century Black Atlantic, Both Blocking and Forcing Its Flows

F.B. Eyes ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
William J. Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
Black Atlantic ◽  
World War ◽  
Black Transnationalism ◽  
The Mind

This part marshals the largely uncompiled evidence of FBI author files to suggest that the worst suspicions about the stakeout of Paris noir were basically correct—that Wright was not too wrong, it follows, when he darkly joked that any African American “who is not paranoid is in serious shape,” at least if he or she sought literary license outside the United States during the Hoover era. Two decades before American involvement in World War II opened the floodgates of black Paris, the FBI began to influence the movements of expatriate Afro-modernists—this even as it manipulated “lit.-cop federalism” to nationalize itself in the mind of white America. In the French capital of black transnationalism, and satellites beyond, FBI agents and informers kept tabs on a network of black literary travelers they hoped to link by the vulnerabilities of statelessness alone. Thus, this book's fourth thesis: The FBI helped to define the twentieth-century Black Atlantic, both blocking and forcing its flows.

From Propagandistic Exploitation to Post-Communist Sensationalism: Beethoven Reception in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Romania

2021 ◽  
Vol 61 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 113-128
Author(s):  
Florinela Popa
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Regimes ◽  
World War ◽  
Adolf Hitler ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
The Way

This paper mainly investigates the way Beethoven’s image was turned, during the totalitarian political regimes of twentieth-century Romania, into a tool of propaganda. Two such ideological annexations are striking: one took place in the period when Romania, as Germany’s ally during World War II and led by Marshall Ion Antonescu, who was loyal to Adolf Hitler, to a certain extent copied the Nazi model (1940–1944); the other, much longer, began when Communists took power in 1947 and lasted until 1989, with some inevitable continuations. The beginnings of contemporary Romanian capitalism in the 1990s brought, in addition to an attempt to depoliticize Beethoven by means of professional, responsible musicological enquiries, no longer grounded in Fascist or Communist ideologies, another type of approach: sensationalist, related to the “identification” of some of Beethoven’s love interests who reportedly lived on the territory of present-day Romania.

Stepping Back

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen H. Tamura
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War I ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Other ◽  
World War ◽  
American Legion ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Foreign Wars

This chapter focuses on the men with whom Kurihara clashed at Manzanar. These include Tokie Nishimura Slocum, Togo Tanaka, and Karl Yoneda. Like Kurihara, Slocum was a veteran of World War I and a member of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. As war between Japan and the United States grew imminent, Slocum gained the reputation of being an informer for the FBI and Naval Intelligence. As such, he was thoroughly despised by most Nikkei at Manzanar. Similarly, because of his role as a WRA documentary historian, Togo Tanaka was targeted by Nikkei dissidents as an informer and included him on their death list. On the other hand, Karl Yoneda refused to speak out against DeWitt's removal orders. Yoneda and other Nikkei Communists felt that they had no choice but to “accept the racist U.S. dictum” of incarceration “over Hitler's ovens and Japan's military rapists of Nanking.”

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