Telling America's story to the world : literature, internationalism, cultural diplomacy / Harilaos Stecopoulos.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stecopoulos, Harry, author.

Series:

Oxford Academic.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature.

Literature.

Cultural Studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (274 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2023]

Summary:

Telling America's Story to the World argues that state and state-affiliated cultural diplomacy contributed to the making of postwar US literature. Highlighting the role of liberal internationalism in US cultural outreach, I contend that the state mainly sent authors like Ralph Ellison, Robert Lowell, William Faulkner, Langston Hughes, and Maxine Hong Kingston overseas not just to demonstrate the achievements of US civilization but also to broadcast an American commitment to global intercultural connection. Those writers-cum-ambassadors may not have helped the state achieve its propaganda goals-indeed, this rarely proved the case-but they did find their assignments an opportunity to ponder the international meanings of US literature. For many of those figures, courting foreign publics inspired a reevaluation of the scope and form of their own literary projects. Testifying to the inadvertent yet integral role of cultural diplomacy in the worlding of US letters, works like The Mansion (1959), Life Studies (1959), "Cultural Exchange" (1961, 1967), Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book (1989), and <i>Three Days Before the Shooting... (2010) reimagine the literary in a mobile, global, and distinctly political register.

Contents:

Preface

Introduction

1. The Good Neighbor Theory of American Literature: Archibald MacLeish and the "New World" of the United Nations

2. "Chau-vin-ism! Con-form-ity! Self-de-termi-nation! Freeeeeeeeee-dom!": Ralph Ellison, Robert Lowell, and Occupied Salzburg

3. People to People, Writers to Writers: William Faulkner, the Snopes Problem, and Middlebrow Internationalism

4. Diasporic Diplomacy: Langston Hughes, the Africa Propaganda Campaign, and Black Literary Internationalism

5. Republic of Letters, Cockpit of Controversy: Arthur Miller, PEN International, and Literary Détente

6. "A Harvest of Conversations Among Multitudes": Maxine Hong Kingston, Wittman Ah Sing, and the US-China Writers'

Conferences

Coda: Multicultural Diplomacy

Notes

Works Cited

General Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on Publisher website; title from home page (viewed on September 30, 2022).

Other Format:

Print version: Stecopoulos, Harilaos Telling America's Story to the World

ISBN:

0-19-195514-0

0-19-267990-2

0-19-267991-0

Publisher Number:

10.1093/oso/9780192864635.001.0001 DOI