Keys to controversies : stereotypes in modern American novels / Astrid Franke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Franke, Astrid, 1968-

Series:

Nordamerikastudien ; Bd. 10.

Nordamerikastudien ; Bd. 10

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Stereotypes (Social psychology) in literature.

Literature and society--United States--History--20th century.

Literature and society.

United States.

History.

Psychological fiction, American--History and criticism.

Psychological fiction, American.

African Americans in literature.

Ethnic groups in literature.

Minorities in literature.

Race in literature.

Physical Description:

301 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Frankfurt ; New York : Campus Verlag ; New York : St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Summary:

Stereotypes are usually seen as an expression of racism and defamation, but they also play a role in cognition and contribute to the process of perceiving and understanding other social groups and cultures. Based on this ambivalence, this study inquires into the different functions of stereotypes and employs the term as a key in the analysis of literary and cultural texts. It illuminates how different aesthetic projects relate to each other and interweave with artistic and political controversies of American Modernism.

Contents:

II The Theory and Practice of Stereotyping 18

A Theories of Stereotyping 19

B The Practice of Stereotyping in Literature 39

C Theory in Practice: A Short Discussion of Thomas Dixon's The Clansman 46

III Concepts of Cognition: The Discovery of Stereotypes 63

A Conceptualizing Stereotypes: Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion 64

B The Cognitive Pattern of Stereotyping: Gertrude Stein's Three Lives 81

IV Exciting Emotions: The Affective Power of Stereotypes 122

A Investigating Immigrants 123

B Essentially Different, yet the Same: Stereotypes and Ethnic Identity in Anzia Yezierska's Salome of the Tenements 150

V The Harlem Renaissance as a Struggle Against Stereotypes 186

A Attacking Stereotypes: Alain Locke's The New Negro 188

B Counterattack and Camouflage: Carl Van Vechten's Nigger Heaven 206

C Exploring a Trap: Claude McKay's Home to Harlem 234

VI Conclusion: Reading Stereotypes 267

A Modernist Stereotypes: Defamiliarization or Distortion? 268

B Popularity and Populism: Familiarizing Stereotypes 275

C Mimicry or Crippled Creativity? Familiarizing and Defamiliarizing Stereotypes 278

D Living with Stereotypes and Reading against them 282.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 284-301).

ISBN:

0312219210

359336221X

OCLC:

39478005