The mediating nation : late American realism, globalization, and the progressive state / Nathaniel Cadle.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cadle, Nathaniel, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American literature.

Realism in literature.

Progressivism in literature.

Multiculturalism in literature.

Literature and transnationalism.

Modernism (Literature)--United States.

Modernism (Literature).

United States.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

x, 253 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, 2014.

Summary:

By the early twentieth century, as Woodrow Wilson would later declare, the United States had become both the literal embodiment of all the earth's peoples and a nation representing all other nations and cultures through its ethnic and cultural diversity. This idea of connection with all peoples, Nathaniel Cadle argues, allowed American literary writers to circulate their work internationally, in turn promoting American literature and also the nation itself. Reexamining the relationship between Progressivism and literary realism, Cadle demonstrates that the narratives constructed by American writers asserted a more active role for the United States in world affairs and helped to shift global influence from Europe to North America. From the novels of Henry James, William Dean Howells, and Abraham Cahan to the political and social writings of Woodrow Wilson and W. E. B. Du Bois, Cadle identifies a common global engagement through which realists and Progressives articulated a stronger and more active cultural, political, and social role for the United States. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: Transnational circulation in the age of realism and progressivism

chapter one. From cosmopolitanism to world-salvation: the transnational imaginary and the idea of the progressive state

chapter two. Local color, world literature, and the transnational turn in William Dean Howells's fiction and criticism

chapter three. Improper wealth getting: Henry James, the rise of finance capitalism, and the emerging global cultural economy

chapter four. Migration systems and literary production: the global routes of Abraham Cahan and Knut Hamsun

chapter five. Freedom amongst aliens: Jack London, Lafcadio Hearn, and the alternative modernity of Japan

Coda: Modernism, multiculturalism, and the legacy of the mediating nation.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-245) and index.

ISBN:

9781469618456

1469618451

OCLC:

876000083