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America(n) Matters

Selected Essays

Freese, Peter

Herausgeber: Mitchell, Michael | Wierschem, Markus

American Studies – A Monograph Series, Bd. 283

2018

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Abstract

This anthology brings together 21 of the more than 200 articles and essays published between 1977 and 2017 by Professor Peter Freese from the University of Paderborn, one of the most distinguished authorities on American literature and culture within Germany and beyond. Arranged in four broad thematic sections covering the ‘matters of America’, the essays range widely across a vista of subjects, writers, concepts and contexts, from the evolution of the American Dream to the visions of end times as apocalypse or entropic decay, from the corrupt glitter of Hollywood to the ancient mysteries of mythic landscapes, from literary classics to hip hop. He convincingly shows how the study of arts, particularly literature, gives privileged access to the kaleidoscopic diversity of American society, opening up incomparable panoramas and fascinating insights. An indispensible aid to the scholar but also accessible to the general reader, these essays show how the study of America matters.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Zwischenüberschrift Seite Aktion Preis
Cover Cover
Titel 3
Imprint 4
Table of Contents 5
Introduction: America(n) Matters 7
Europe and the American Dream 17
“Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way”: The "translatio"-Concept in Popular American Writing and Painting 17
The American Dream 53
Fett, sauber und versoffen: Zu drei zeitlosen Konstanten des amerikanischen Deutschlandbildes 77
Americans in Europe 101
The Two Cultures: Literature and Science 121
From the Apocalyptic to the Entropic End: From Hope to Despair to New Hope? 121
From “Entropy” to "The Crying of Lot 49": Thomas Pynchon and the Entropic End 149
Invented Religions as Sense-Making Systems in Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels 179
Science and Technology in Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels 203
Surviving the End: Apocalypse, Evolution, and Entropy in Bernard Malamud, Kurt Vonnegut, and Thomas Pynchon 227
Changing Forms and Shifting Perspectives 243
Die Story ist tot, es lebe die Story: Von der Short Story über die Anti-Story zur Meta-Story der Gegenwart 243
Doctorow’s “Criminals of Perception,” or What Has Happened to the Historical Novel 273
Universality vs. Ethnocentricity, or; the Literary Canon in a Multicultural Society 299
Teaching American Multiculturalism through Stories about ‘Growing Up Ethnic’ 319
Textual Kaleidoscopes: American Identities 351
Bret Easton Ellis: From "Less Than Zero" (1985) to "Imperial Bedrooms" (2010) 351
Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, “Empire State of Mind”: A New Anthem to New York City? 401
Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Vietnam War: Sam Hughes’s Quest in Bobbie Ann Mason’s "In Country" (1985) 423
Leslie Marmon Silko’s "Ceremony" (1977): Universality versus Ethnocentrism 451
Joe Leaphorn as a Cultural Mediator in Tony Hillerman’s Mysteries 493
Trouble in the House of Fiction: Bernard Malamud’s "The Tenants" (1971) 517
A Medieval Crusader in Twentieth-Century New Orleans: John Kennedy Toole’s "A Confederacy of Dunces" (1980) 533
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s "The Tortilla Curtain" (1995): A Case Study in the Genesis of Xenophobia 571
Reprint Notices 598
Backcover 600