Reclaiming John Steinbeck : writing for the future of humanity / Gavin Jones.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jones, Gavin Roger, 1968- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Steinbeck, John, 1902-1968--Criticism and interpretation.

Steinbeck, John.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 252 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Summary:

John Steinbeck is a towering figure in twentieth-century American literature; yet he remains one of our least understood writers. This major reevaluation of Steinbeck by Gavin Jones uncovers a timely thinker who confronted the fate of humanity as a species facing climate change, environmental crisis, and a growing divide between the powerful and the marginalized. Driven by insatiable curiosity, Steinbeck's work crossed a variety of borders - between the United States and the Global South, between human and nonhuman lifeforms, between science and the arts, and between literature and film - to explore the transformations in consciousness necessary for our survival on a precarious planet. Always seeking new forms to express his ecological and social vision of human interconnectedness and vulnerability, Steinbeck is a writer of urgent concern for the twenty-first century, even as he was haunted by the legacies of racism and injustice in the American West.

Contents:

Cover

Half-title page

Title page

Copyright page

Dedication

Contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction Loving and Hating Steinbeck

Chapter 1 Short Stories in School and Lab: "Tularecito" and "The Snake"

Chapter 2 Drought, Climate, and Race in the West: To a God Unknown

Chapter 3 Race and Revision: "The Vigilante" and "Johnny Bear"

Chapter 4 Becoming Animal: Theories of Mind in The Red Pony

Chapter 5 What Is It Like to Be a Plant? "The Chrysanthemums" and "The White Quail"

Chapter 6 On Not Being a Modernist: Disability and Performance in Of Mice and Men

Chapter 7 Emergence and Failure: The Middleness of The Grapes of Wrath

Chapter 8 Borderlands: Extinction and the New World Outlook in Sea of Cortez

Chapter 9 Mexican Revolutions: The Forgotten Village, The Pearl, and the Global South

Epilogue The Aftertaste of Cannery Row

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 22 Feb 2021).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-94518-X

1-108-94594-5

1-108-93348-3

OCLC:

1266908200