Middlebrow Mission : Pearl S. Buck's American China / Vanessa Künnemann.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Künnemann, Vanessa, author.

Contributor:

John G. Hartman Memorial Library Fund.

Series:

Lettre (Transcript (Firm))

Lettre

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973--Criticism and interpretation.

Buck, Pearl S. (Pearl Sydenstricker), 1892-1973.

Missions in literature.

Missions, American.

History.

Chinese Americans.

Intellectual life.

Criticism and interpretation.

China--In literature.

China.

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

American literature.

Chinese Americans--Intellectual life.

Missions, American--China--History.

Physical Description:

283 pages ; 23 cm.

Other Title:

Pearl S. Buck's American China

Place of Publication:

Bielefeld : Transcript, [2015]

Summary:

Nobel Prize winner Pearl S. Buck's engagement with (neo-)missionary cultures in the United States and China was unique. Against the backdrop of her missionary upbringing, the Nobel Prize winner Buck developed a fictional project which both revised and reaffirmed American foreign missionary activity in the Pacific Rim during the 20th century. Vanessa Künnemann traces this aspect of the career of America's number one expert on China-as Buck came to be known-from a variety of disciplinary angles, including Middlebrow Studies and New American Studies. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Sentimental Imperialism of American Women Missionaries in China 41

American Missionaries as Cultural Imperialists 43

Women Missionaries - Competing Concepts of Womanhood Abroad? 48

Women Missionaries and their Home Audiences 59

'The Work of Women for Women': Ambiguities in the Social Gospel 65

Missionary Marriages and the 'Burden of Motherhood' 71

The Missionary Home as Empire 78

2 The Exile and Fighting Angel: Pearl Buck's Gendered Critique of Missions 89

The Parents' Representativeness: Introducing Pearl Buck's Recovery Project 94

Between Fact and Fiction: Pearl Buck as a 'New' Biographer 97

The American Mother and the Saintly Prophet: The Biographies of Pearl Buck's Missionary Parents 103

Rethinking the Biographies - Pearl Buck's My Several Worlds 119

"Is there a Case for Foreign Missions?" Pearl Buck's Official Break with the Missionary Movement 123

'Making Use of Missionary Pamphlets'? The Missionary Theme in Buck's Fiction 130

3 Pearl Buck's Coming of Age: East Wind, West Wind 133

Pearl Buck's Rise on the American Literary Scene and the Publication Background of East Wind, West Wind 136

The Style and Narrative Perspective of East Wind, West Wind 144

The Missionary Husband and the Practice of Footbinding 150

4 Reversing the Middlebrow: The Good Earth 163

The Marketing and Reception of The Good Earth 167

The Good Earth as a Depression Novel 177

The Iconicity of O-Ian 183

5 China/Town Hybridity and (Neo-) Missionary Nostalgia: "His Own Country" and Kinfolk 199

"His Own Country" - The Return to One's 'Roots'? 202

'Showing what it is to be Chinese': Staging China/Town in Kinfolk 210

The 'Elegant Fake': Enter Dr Liang 213

"We must show this vast new country what it is to be Chinese": Dr Liang as an 'Old' Missionary 216

'Dissolving the Beautiful Cloud of Confucianism': The Neo-Missionaries in China 222

'Belonging to all of them': Mrs Liang and the Promise of Hybridiry? 229

6 Coda: "We haven't deserted Him exactly, we just haven't known how to fit Him in." The Missionary Legacy in Pearl Buck and her Fiction 231.

Notes:

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universität Hannover.

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the John G. Hartman Memorial Library Fund.

ISBN:

9783837631081

3837631087

OCLC:

940422011

Publisher Number:

99966754863