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American Cultural Critics

". . . the book offers a rich harvest of insights (some even refreshingly novel) into the interior of a number of American critical paradigms - some central, some marginal, but all undoubtedly relevant." Newsletter of the European Association for American Studies

This collection of essays assesses the work of a number of American intellectuals, including Susan Sontag, F.O. Mathieson, Daniel Bell and Hannah Arendt, who have addressed issues of culture and its multifaceted relations to politics, history, sociology and literary criticism. Concentrating on writing since 1940, the essays examine the central themes of American postwar intellectual history, including the continuing reaction to (or against) modernity and technology, the legacies of Marxism and psychoanalysis, and the re-examination of American founding principles and figures in conservative or liberal terms.

Readership:Academics and students of American studies and cultural studies. Also useful for students in a wide range of disciplines in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Any reader interested in the intellectual aspects of the post-war developments of American society.

DAVID MURRAY teaches American Studies at the University of Nottingham.

CONTENTS

1. Southern Literary and Intellectual History in the Twentieth Century: The Agrarians to Richard Weaver (Michael Kreylong)

2. The Agony of the Avant-Garde: Philip Rhav and the New York Intellectuals (Hugh Wilford)

3. F.O.Matthiessen's "Devotion to the Possibilities of Democracy" and his Place as an American Intellectual (Richard Bradbury)

4. Susan Sontag: The Intellectual and Cultural Criticism (Liam Kennedy)

5. Stanley Cavell: Must We Believe What We Say? (Michael Wood)

6. The Person in Place: Lewis Mumford, Pioneer of Cultural Criticism (Clive Bush)

7. Coming of Age in America: Margaret Mead and Karen Horney (Helen Carr)

8. Erik H.Erikson's Critical Themes and Voices: The Task of Synthesis (Lawrence J. Friedman)

9. Philip Rieff (Jerry Z. Muller)

10. Hannah Arendt (Richard H. King)

11. Garry Willis (Stephen J. Whitfield)

13. Culture at Modernity's End: Daniel Bell and Fredric Jameson (Nick Heffernan)

Index

Approaches To The American Musical

Readership:Undergraduates studying American studies in general, but especially those with courses which cover cultural musicology, and the musical. Also the academic and general reader with an interest in American performance arts, music, the theatre and American film.

ROBERT LAWSON-PEEBLES is Senior Lecturer in the School of English and American Studies, University of Exeter.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction: Cultural Musicology and the American Musical (Robert Lawson-Peebles)

2. From Butterfly to Saigon: Europe, America, and "Success" (Wilfrid Mellers)

3. There's No Business Like Show Business: A Speculative Reading of the Broadway Musical (Carey Wall)

4. From Gold Diggers to Bar Girls: A Selective History of the American Movie Musical (Ralph Willett)

5. Holy Yumpin' Yiminy: Scandinavian Immigrant Stereotypes in the Early Twentieth Century American Musical (Anne-Charlotte Hanes Harvey)

6. Movies in Disguise: Negotiating Censorship and Patriarchy Through the Dances of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (Sue Rickard)

7. Brush Up Your Shakespeare: The Case of Kiss me, Kate (Robert Lawson-Peebles)

8. Who Loves You Porgy? The Debates Surrounding Gershwin's Musical (David Horn)

9. West Side Story Revisited (Wilfrid Mellers)

10. Sondheim and the Art That Has No Name (Stephen Banfield)

Index

The Gift of a Child

The Gift of a Child is an easy to read book which gives clear and non-technical information about childlessness caused by male infertility, and about how this childlessness can be resolved by the use of donor insemination (DI). The book is written in a question and answer form and covers the issues raised by those seeking or undergoing DI treatment. It draws on the experience of couples whose own children were conceived by donor insemination and makes the knowledge gained by their experiences available to other childless couples.

The questions answered include: What is DI? How common is DI treatment? How successful is DI? How much does DI cost? What happens at the time of treatment? Who is responsible if the baby is handicapped at birth? Does keeping DI hidden cause any problems? How do family and friends react when told about DI? What rights does the child have concerning knowledge of DI? Will the same donor be used for a second baby? Does the donor have any legal rights concerning the child? How many times is a donor used? What records are kept of treatment?

"Informative, easy to read and understand, this book could be recommended to all couples having problems conceiving, to student midwives, student nurses, those involved in all aspects of family planning work, and to all who are interested in human fertility." Journal of Advanced Nursing

Green Screen: Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema

Green Screen combines film studies with environmental history and politics, aiming to establish a cultural criticism informed by ‘green’ thought. David Ingram argues that Hollywood cinema has largely perpetuated romantic attitudes to nature and has played an important ideological role in the ‘greenwashing’ of ecological discourses.

The book accounts for the rise of environmental concerns in Hollywood cinema, and explores the ways in which attitudes to nature and the environment are constructed in a number of movies.  It is divided into three sections: Wilderness in Hollywood Cinema; Wild Animals in Hollywood Cinema; Development and the Politics of Land Use.

• Reprinted once as a hardback, this book is now published as a paperback for the first time

• Movies discussed include The China Syndrome, Pocahontas, Free Willy, Chinatown, Gorillas in the Mist, Medicine Man

• Topics include rain forests, wildlife conservation, rural and urban ecologies, quests for energy

‘Green Screen combines film criticism, cultural criticism, ecocriticism, and a bit of environmental history in an engaging and useful way.  Its selection of films, many of which are described in some detail, will be useful to those who are entering the field. Its insights will be of value to ecocritical scholars and to those who want to bring environmental film into their classroom.’ ISLE 9.1, Winter 2002

‘[Ingram’s] filmography in Green Screen: Environmentalism and Hollywood Cinema contains more than 150 Hollywood movies from the 1890s to the 1990s “in which an environmental issue is raised explicitly and is central to the narrative”. He manages to analyze almost half of these in a dozen short chapters organized around three central themes: the wilderness, wild animals, and the politics of land use including the impacts of the automobile and nuclear power. This book will be valuable to anyone interested in politics and popular culture, American movies, and environmentalist debates on the meaning of nature.’ American Studies International, Vol. 39, No. 3, Oct 2001

‘This book is primarily an agenda-setter. As such it makes clear how complex and important are the debates that film studies and American studies more widely will need to tackle regarding representations and critique of late-capitalist consumerism in its global phase.’ Forum for Modern Languages, Vol. 38, No. 1, 2002  

Market: Students of film, cultural, environmental and American studies. Academic libraries. The general reader with an interest in the above subjects.

Narratives and Spaces

"The American frontier has always been as much technological as geographical. And if a mythical Wild West underpins America's idea of itself, there are other ways of seeing the same landscape that depend on stories told about electrification and the railroad rather than rifle-toting cowboys. So argues cultural historian David Nye in this intriguing collection of essays about how the citizens of the US have viewed themselves and their country. His theme is how they have constantly refigured the expansion and modernisation of their culture in the vast spaces of North America."
New Scientist, 28 March 1998

David Nye's Narratives and Spaces examines how photography, the railroad, electricity, space flight and the computer became central, yet often contradictory, parts of the way Americans construct and narrate their culture, whether as western settlers, consumers or tourists. The book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on topics at the centre of contemporary debate and draws on a wide range of cultural media.

Narratives and Spaces is a significant contribution to American cultural history, and like David Nye's previous award-winning books, is written to be accessible to a wide audience.

Narratives and Spaces by David E. Nye is the first volume in a new UEP series, Representing American Culture. This series exists to publish lively, accessible and up-to-date studies of the culture of the United States. Whether devoted to topics in popular, middlebrow or high culture, books in the series explore the ways in which ideological assumptions may be seen to be represented. The series is edited by Mick Gidley, Professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds.

• Award-winning author
  
• A significant contribution to American cultural history
  
• Written in non-technical language to be accessible to the general reader

Market: Scholars and students of American studies. Scholars of science and technology. Academic libraries. The general reader with an interest in arts, architecture and the history of technology.

Author: David E. Nye is Professor of American History at Odense University, Denmark. He has been a visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. Author of nine books and editor of many others, he has received both the Dexter Prize and the Able Wolman Award, and has served as a consultant for programmes on both Danish and American television.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Spaces
1. Constructing Nature: Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon
2. Electrifying the American West: 1880-1940
3. Domestic Landscape: Wright Morris' The Home Place

Narratives
4. Four Narratives of New Deal Electrification
5. Energy Narratives
6. Space of the Past: E.L. Doctorow's World's Fair

Narratives in Space
7. Electrifying Expositions: 1880-1939
8. European Exhibits at the 1939 World's Fair
9. Don't Fly Me to the Moon: The Public and the Apollo Space Program
10. Postmodernism and the Computer

The New Germany

"Much of the detail, statistics and up-to-date material will appeal to academics; it is, however, a useful standard text that could be recommended to students on a range of German and European studies courses requiring Landeskunde on the current situation in the new Germany. The layout and extensive nature of the coverage mean that this well-written book will be valuable for both lecturers and students from a number of disciplines. The editors are to be congratulated on the way in which they have successfully brought together so many contributions from different authors and different areas of expertise."
German Studies

"Aimed at both general readers and students of German, this valuable work with contributions from respected scholars in the field of German studies provides useful background information on contemporary Germany, its institutions and culture with the main focus on 'the experiences of Germans in the new federal states'."
Political Studies, Vol. 45, No. 2, June 1997

Readership: Students of German and their teachers; undergraduates following literature or language based German courses; students of European Studies; the general reader seeking a broad-based introduction to contemporary Germany.

DEREK LEWIS is Lecturer in German, University of Exeter. JOHN MCKENZIE is Head of Department and Senior Lecturer in German, University of Exeter.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I: Setting the Scene: the Demise of East Germany

1. From Euphoria to Reality: Social Problems of Post-Unification (Jürgen A. K. Thomaneck)

2. Views of the Wende (Gerald Opie)

3. The GDR: Wende and Legacy (Derek Lewis)

Part II: The Political, Social and Economic Challenges

4. Germany as a European Power (Mark Blacksell)

5. The Changing Framework of German Politics since Unification (Charles Jeffery)

6. The German Economy: Decline or Stability? (Karl Koch)

7. Education in the New Germany (Edward Neather)

8. Women in Germany from Division to Unification (Ingrid Sharp and Dagmar Flinspach)

Part III: The Cultural and Artistic Challenges

9. The German Media (John Sandford)

10. Writers in Transition: The End Of East German Literature? (James Mellis)

11. German Literature after Unification (Jochen Rohlfs)

12. The German Theatre (Michael Patterson)

13. German Film after the Wende (Helen Hughes and Martin Brady)

14. The German Language: From Revolt to Division (Derek Lewis)

Chronology of Events

"This book is divided into three parts, dealing with, firstly, the demise of the GDR, secondly, the political, social and economic challenges of unification, and, thirdly, the cultural and artistic challenges. The 15 contributors cover a wide range of interesting and important topics. The opening chapter adopts an unusual and effective approach to the problems influencing everyday life post-unification, based on case study material compiled from interviews with an east German family living in Rostock. A picture emerges of what unification meant for the ordinary citizens of the new federal states. In the second and third chapters the reader is offered a unique insight into the way the 1989 revolution was perceived by people, including east Germans who were sympathetic to the old regime, and the way in which the GDR's political system controlled people's everyday lives.

Part Two provides succinct coverage of Germany as a European power and the implications of the changes for its polity and economy. The effect of developments in the new Germany on the education system and the position of women are also given detailed treatment. Part Three explains how the press and broadcasting in western Germany have hardly been affected, whilst the changes in the east have been dramatic. On-going changes in the fields of literature, theatre and the cinema also make interesting reading. The final chapter on language as a barometer of the revolution gives many examples in German and will be of great interest and value to any student of the German language. Throughout the book considerable emphasis is placed on the former GDR and the current situation in the new federal states.

A useful chronology of events between January 1989 and December 1994 is accompanied by a glossary of terms and abbreviations (a combination of English and German) and a bibliography for further reading. Much of the detail, statistics and up-to-date material will appeal to academics; it is, however, a useful standard text that could be recommended to students on a range of German and European Studies courses requiring Landeskunde on the current situation in the new Germany. The layout and extensive nature of the coverage mean that this well-written book will be valuable for both lecturers and students from a number of disciplines. The editors are to be congratulated on the way in which they have successfully brought together so many contributions from different authors and different areas of expertise."
Peter James,German Politics, April 1997

Not on Any Map

"The value of Murray's collection is the specificity of the research areas it offers, in contrast to the generality and circularity that theory so often assumes. The book successfully contributes to our growing understanding of forms of nationalism and the nation outside of, and explicitly and implicitly challenging, earlier European models."
Wasafiri, Issue no. 27, Spring 1998

"Not On Any Map is a wide-ranging collection of essays by academic and creative writers, exploring the varied cultural legacies of 'post-colonialism'. . . The strength of these essays is the way in which they thrust the reader directly into unfamiliar, localized debates and particular literary scenes. . . The collection is, in fact, an effective mirror of the problem it describes: a celebration of cultural diversity falling subject to theoretical colonization."
Times Literary Supplement, 26 September 1997

"A truly impressive collection of essays from a diverse group of academics."
Colonial and Postcolonial Studies Newsletter, September 1997

Why is the world in which we live so ruled by the idea of the nation? What effect have the newly independent nations of the last fifty years had on the old world order? Are countries in a post-imperial world the same now as they were in the time of imperialism? Not On Any Map seeks to answer these questions and explores the wide-ranging issues surrounding nationalism and postcoloniality.

The collection draws on the work of scholars and creative producers from all over the world who explore the idea of the nation in a variety of postcolonial contexts. These include a piece from Wilson Harris' work-in-progress, as well as other work on literary nationalism, media arts promotion, the use of the indigene in tourism, commercial cinema, immigration, developments in communication and technology, sport and issues affecting nations both in the former colonial centres and the ex-colonies.

Readership: Undergraduates and researchers accross the range of humanities courses, cultural studies, literature, history, sociology, media and communication.

STUART MURRAY is Lecturer in English, Trinity College, Dublin.

The Radiant Hour

This book of interdisciplinary essays explores how youth has been represented in American culture.  The book focuses on familiar literary, film and television texts set within a framework of ideas drawn from cultural and social theory, presenting innovative and challenging analyses of new and classic texts from the 1890s to the 1990s.

The collection contributes to the necessary and important debate over the meanings of youth representation within American culture, emphasising the ideological nature of youth and its centrality to a complex reading of popular culture. 

In particular, the book examines issues of gender, race and sexuality as central to the construction of youth identity and to the other significant relationships between youth and authority.  It deliberately asserts the contradictions in youth representations and denies any easy definitions that might serve to compound stereotypes or sustain vested interests.

Without any single vision or approach, the essays show how the cultural politics of youth are no longer only about being young but rather associated with both personal and public values, aspirations and ideologies that extend way beyond any simple consideration of the self.

Readership: Teachers and students of American studies, cultural studies, contemporary literature, sociology, gender studies. Academic libraries. The general reader with an interest in the above subjects.

Neil Campbell is Head of American Studies at the University of Derby.  He is co-author of American Cultural Studies (1997) and author of Cultures of the New West (2000).

Representing Others

"The problem of representation, as Mick Gidley points out in his lucid introduction to this reasonably-priced volume, is precisely that - a problem. How people, cultures and places come to be represented in written texts, visual images, film and stone is not at all self-evident."
Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

Mick Gidley is Professor of American Literature, University of Leeds.

CONTENTS

1. Representing Others: An Introduction (Mick Gidley)

2. A Native American in Stone: The Simcoe Memorial in Exeter Cathedral (Stephanie Smiles)

3. The Medical Officer's Diary: Travel and Travail with the Self in Africa (Tim Youngs)

4. Of Conrad, Cannibals and Kin (Anthony Fothergill)

5. Noble Men and Noble Savages (Ron Tamplin)

6. Johannes Lindt: Photographer of Australia and New Guinea (Peter Quartermaine)

7. Edward S. Curtis' Indian Photographs: A National Enterprise (Mick Gidley)

8. John Ford and the Indians; or, Tom Doniphon's History Lesson (Richard Maltby)

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