Edith Wharton and the politics of race / Jennie A. Kassanoff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kassanoff, Jennie Ann.

Series:

Cambridge studies in American literature and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937--Political and social views.

Wharton, Edith.

Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937.

Politics and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Politics and literature.

Political and social views.

United States.

History.

Race relations in literature.

Immigrants in literature.

Race in literature.

Physical Description:

xii, 226 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, U.K. ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Summary:

Edith Wharton feared that the "ill-bred," "foreign," and poor would overwhelm what was known as the American native elite. Drawing on a range of turn-of-the-century social documents, unpublished archival material, and Wharton's major novels, Jennie A. Kassanoff argues that a fuller appreciation of American culture and democracy becomes available through a sustained engagement with these controversial views. She pursues her theme through Wharton's spirited participation in a variety of turn-of-the-century discourses - from euthanasia and tourism to pragmatism and Native Americans - to produce a truly interdisciplinary study of this major American writer. Kassanoff locates Wharton squarely in the middle of the debates on race, class, and democratic pluralism at the turn of the twentieth century. Drawing on diverse cultural materials, she offers close interdisciplinary readings that will be of interest to scholars of American literature and culture.

Contents:

1 Invaders and Aborigines: playing Indian in the Land of Letters 8

2 "The real Lily Bart": staging race in The House of Mirth 37

3 "A close corporation": the body and the machine in The Fruit of the Tree 59

4 The Age of Experience: pragmatism, the Titanic and The Reef 83

5 Charity begins at home: Summer and the erotic tourist 112

6 Coda: The Age of Innocence and the Cesnola controversy 153.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 166-213) and index.

ISBN:

0521830893

OCLC:

53361535

Online:

Publisher description