Reading the Obscene : Transgressive Editors and the Class Politics of US Literature / Jordan Carroll.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Carroll, Jordan S., author.

Series:

Post 45.

Post*45 Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Censorship--United States--History--20th century.

Censorship.

Obscenity (Law)--United States--History--20th century.

Obscenity (Law).

Anticensorship activists--United States--History--20th century.

Anticensorship activists.

Editors--Political activity--United States--History--20th century.

Editors.

Erotic literature--Publishing--United States--History--20th century.

Erotic literature.

Pornography--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Pornography.

Middle class men--Books and reading--United States--History--20th century.

Middle class men.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (280 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, [2021]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

With Reading the Obscene, Jordan Carroll reveals new insights about the editors who fought the most famous anti-censorship battles of the twentieth century. While many critics have interpreted obscenity as a form of populist protest, Reading the Obscene shows that the editors who worked to dismantle censorship often catered to elite audiences composed primarily of white men in the professional-managerial class. As Carroll argues, transgressive editors, such as H. L. Mencken at the Smart Set and the American Mercury, William Gaines and Al Feldstein at EC Comics, Hugh Hefner at Playboy, Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights Books, and Barney Rosset at Grove Press, taught their readers to approach even the most scandalizing texts with the same cold calculation and professional reserve they employed in their occupations. Along the way, these editors kicked off a middle-class sexual revolution in which white-collar professionals imagined they could control sexuality through management science. Obscenity is often presented as self-shattering and subversive, but with this provocative work Carroll calls into question some of the most sensational claims about obscenity, suggesting that when transgression becomes a sign of class distinction, we must abandon the idea that obscenity always overturns hierarchies and disrupts social order.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Naked Editor

1 Shocking the Middle Class

2 An Aristocracy of Smut

3 Decrypting EC Comics

4 Reading Playboy for the Science Fiction

5 Mad Ones, Mad Men

6 White-Collar Masochism

Afterword: Transgression in the Post-pornographic Era

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Nov 2021)

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9781503629493

150362949X

OCLC:

1286806162