Research Catalog

Title

Reading America : citizenship, democracy, and Cold War literature / Kristin L. Matthews.

Author

Matthews, Kristin L., 1973-

Publication

• Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2016]
• ©2016

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xi, 207 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

"During the Cold War, the editor of Time magazine declared, "A good citizen is a good reader." As postwar euphoria faded, a wide variety of Americans turned to reading to understand their place in the changing world. Yet, what did it mean to be a good reader? And how did reading make you a good citizen? In Reading America, Kristin L. Matthews puts into conversation a range of political, educational, popular, and touchstone literary texts to demonstrate how Americans from across the political spectrum--including "great works" proponents, New Critics, civil rights leaders, postmodern theorists, neoconservatives, and multiculturalists--celebrated particular texts and advocated particular interpretive methods as they worked to make their vision of "America" a reality. She situates the fiction of J.D. Salinger, Ralph Ellison, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, and Maxine Hong Kingston within these debates, illustrating how Cold War literature was not just an object of but also a vested participant in postwar efforts to define good reading and citizenship"--

Series Statement

Studies in print culture and the history of the book

Uniform Title

Studies in print culture and the history of the book.

Alternative Title

Citizenship, democracy, and Cold War literature

Subjects

• Books and reading > Social aspects
• Literature and society
• American literature
• Identity (Psychology) in literature
• History
• 1900-1999
• Democracy in literature
• Cold War in literature
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Books and reading > Social aspects > United States > History > 20th century
• American literature > 20th century > History and criticism
• Citizenship in literature
• United States
• Politics and literature
• Literature and society > United States > History > 20th century
• Cold War (1945-1989) in literature

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Preface -- Introduction: "there is much to be gained by our reading" -- America reads: literacy and Cold War nationalism -- Reading for character, community, and country: J.D. Salinger's The catcher in the rye -- Reading to outmaneuver: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and African American -- Literacy in Cold War America -- Reading against the machine: Oedipa Maas and the quest for democracy in Thomas Pynchon's The crying of lot 49 -- Metafiction and radical democracy: getting at the heart of John Barth's Lost in the funhouse -- Confronting difference, confronting difficulty: culture wars, canon wars, and Maxine Hong Kingston's The woman warrior -- Conclusion: "reading makes a country great."

Call Number

JFE 17-160

ISBN

• 9781625342355
• 1625342357
• 9781625342348
• 1625342349

LCCN

• 2016031023
• 40026642517

OCLC

947146605

Author

Matthews, Kristin L., 1973- author.

Title

Reading America : citizenship, democracy, and Cold War literature / Kristin L. Matthews.

Publisher

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, [2016]

Copyright Date

©2016

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Studies in print culture and the history of the book

Studies in print culture and the history of the book.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Other Standard Identifier

40026642517

Research Call Number

JFE 17-160