Apostles of Modernity

J. Reynolds Guy

Description

Following World War II, Americans entertained a far more international political, cultural, and intellectual awareness as well as a greater fascination with development, progress, and modernity than ever before. In a revisionist account that takes "development" as its main theme, Guy Reynolds charts the responses of novelists, travel writers, and literary intellectuals to the nation’s deepening engagement in world affairs. Reynolds remaps recent literary history featuring authors as diverse as James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Paul Bowles, Pearl Buck, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ernest Hemingway, Peter Matthiessen, Richard Powers, Susan Sontag, and Richard Wright.

 

Apostles of Modernity offers an original, in-depth study of the literary manifestations of this period of globalism in novels, memoirs, essays, reportage, and political commentary. Through close readings of texts Reynolds revisits and reassesses U.S. internationalism, showing how writers and intellectuals engaged with a cluster of topics: decolonization, the rise of the Third World, Islamic difference, the end of European empires, China’s enduring significance, and transatlantic and cosmopolitan identities. Throughout, the ideals of the United States as "apostle of modernity" and sponsor of "development" feature as central to American letters in the decades after World War II.

 

A major contribution to the study of literary internationalism, Apostles of Modernity establishes new paradigms for understanding America’s place in the world and the world’s place in America.

Sujets

• Idioma inglés
• USA
• United States of America
• English
• États-Unis
• Anglais

Informations

• Publié par: Nebraska
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780803216464
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Apostles of Modernity

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln and London

Apostles of Modernity American Writers in the Age of Development

Guy Reynolds

©by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Chapterhas been revised from “‘Sketches of Spain’: Richard Wright’s Pagan Spain& African-American Representations of the Hispanic,” Journal of American Studies():–. Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Reynolds, Guy. Apostles of modernity : American writers in the age of development / Guy Reynolds. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.  ----(cloth : alk. paper) . American literature—th century—History and criticism. in literature.. Internationalism literature—. American Foreign influences.and society—United States—. Literature History—th century.. Foreign countries in literature. I. Title. .  .—dc 

Set in Bulmer MT by Bob Reitz.

Designed by Ashley Muehlbauer.

 Contents

 Acknowledgments vii American Writer and Development:. The Contexts of  Cultural Internationalism . The “Skin Game”:Du Bois, Wright, Malcolm X, Baldwin were in on the last days of Morocco”:. “You Paul Bowles and  the End of Empire . Sinophilia:China and the Writers . Nonalignment and Writing:Rich Lands and Poor Ages:. Stone Peter Matthiessen and Susan Sontag in  Latin America and Asia . African American Representations of the Hispanic: Remaking Europe Americans and Vanishing Europeans:. Ugly American  Presence, European Decolonization great new times”:. “These Cosmopolitanism and  Contemporary Writing  Notes  Index

Acknowledgments

Many readers have helped me over the years, on both sides of the Atlantic. At the University of Kent, members of the Centre for American Studies deepened my understanding of postwar U.S. culture: the late Christine Bolt, George Conyne, Henry Claridge, David Herd, and David Turley. I am grateful to Kent’s English department for its encouragement of this project. Two departmental chairs, Lyn Innes and Peter Brown, helped me carve out time to push the work on. The British Arts and Humanities Research Board (now, “Council”) awarded me a term of research leave, which became the moment when much of my thinking crystallized.  At the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Linda Pratt was the manuscript’s first American reader, and she provided telling commentary. Joe Rein, Tim Marcuson, Mike Page, and Erica Rogers helped variously, with proofreading and exhaustive editorial commentaries. At the University of Nebraska Press, Ladette Randolph has been a warmly encouraging presence. Finally, three anonymous reviewers returned a catalogue of enormously useful suggestions and insights that decisively shaped the book’s final draft.  As always, I want to thank Caroline Anton-Smith, Zac Reynolds, Jamie Reynolds, and Izzy Reynolds for offering not just encouragement but distraction.

Apostles of Modernity