Author Description

This Book Refocuses Current Understandings Of American Literature From The Revolutionary Period To The Present-day Through An Analytical Accounting Of Class, Reestablishing A Foundation For Discussions Of Class In American Culture. American Studies Scholars Have Explored The Ways In Which American Society Operates Through Inequality And Modes Of Social Control, Focusing Primarily On Issues Of Status Group Identities Involving Race/ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality, And Disability. The Essays In This Volume Focus On Both The Historically Changing Experience Of Class And Its Continuing Hold On American Life. The Collection Visits Popular As Well As Canonical Literature, Recognizing That Class Is Constructed In And Mediated By The Affective And The Sensational. It Analyzes Class Division, Class Difference, And Class Identity In American Culture, Enabling Readers To Grasp Why Class Matters, As Well As The Economic, Social, And Political Matter Of Class. Redefining The Field Of American Literary Cultural Studies And Asking It To Rethink Its Preoccupation With Race And Gender As Primary Determinants Of Identity, Contributors Explore The Disciplining Of The Laboring Body And Of The Emotions, The Political Role Of The Novel In Contesting The Limits Of Class Power And Authority, And The Role Of The Modern Consumer Culture In Both Blurring And Sharpening Class Divisions-- Introduction / Andrew Lawson -- Part I: Class In Early American Literature -- The Shays Rebellion In Literary History / Ed White -- The Secret Witness: Thinking, And Not Thinking, About Servants In The Early American Novel /rmatthew Pethers -- Part Ii: Class In The Antebellum Period -- Cheap Reading And The Rise Of Proletarian Print Culture / David M. Stewart -- The City Sketch: Writing Middle-class Identity On The Streets Of Antebellum New York / John Evelev -- Materializing Identification: Theorizing Class Identification In Nineteenth-century Literary Texts / Lori Merish -- Part Iii: Class In The Gilded Age And The Progressive Period -- Cultures Of Class In The Gilded Age Labor Problem Novel / Larry W. Isaac -- A Question Of Meum And Tuum: The Civilization Of The Commodity And The Maintenance Of Inequality In Charles Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman And The Marrow Of Tradition / Tim Libretti -- Edith Wharton, Insider Information, And The Inherited Obligations Of Class / Peter Knight -- Part Iv: Class In The Early To Mid-twentieth Century -- From Class Imaginary To Cultural Revolution In Willa Cather / Robert Seguin -- Class Passing In The Fictuion Of The Great Depression: Breaking Boundaries Through Fashion / Jan Goggans -- Broken Frames: The World War Ii Novel And The Legibility Of Class In The U.s. Historical Imaginaiton / Chris Vials -- Part V: Class In Contemporary Amercian Literature / The Future As Form: Undoing The Categorical Separation Of Class And Gender In Ana Castillo's Sapogonia / Marcial Gonzalez -- A Kiling Greed: Capitalism, Casinos, And Violence In Contemporary Native American Literature / Melanie Benson Taylor -- Not/one: The Poetics Of The Multitude In Great Recession-era America / Margaret Ronda -- Part Iv: Teaching Class -- Teaching U.s. Working Class Literature; Or, Firing The Canon / Bill V. Mullen. Edited By Andrew Lawson. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.