Bodies of Reform : The Rhetoric of Character in Gilded Age America Hardback
by James B. Salazar
Part of the America and the Long 19th Century series
Hardback
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Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series From the patricians of the early republic to post-Reconstruction racial scientists, from fin de siecle progressivist social reformers to post-war sociologists, character, that curiously formable yet equally formidable "stuff," has had a long and checkered history giving shape to the American national identity. Bodies of Reform reconceives this pivotal category of nineteenth-century literature and culture by charting the development of the concept of "character" in the fictional genres, social reform movements, and political cultures of the United States from the mid-nineteenth to the early-twentieth century.
By reading novelists such as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Pauline Hopkins, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman alongside a diverse collection of texts concerned with the mission of building character, including child-rearing guides, muscle-building magazines, libel and naturalization law, Scout handbooks, and success manuals, James B.
Salazar uncovers how the cultural practices of representing character operated in tandem with the character-building strategies of social reformers.
His innovative reading of this archive offers a radical revision of this defining category in U.S. literature and culture, arguing that character was the keystone of a cultural politics of embodiment, a politics that played a critical role in determining-and contesting-the social mobility, political authority, and cultural meaning of the raced and gendered body.
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Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:304 pages
- Publisher:New York University Press
- Publication Date:15/09/2010
- Category:
- ISBN:9780814741306
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Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:304 pages
- Publisher:New York University Press
- Publication Date:15/09/2010
- Category:
- ISBN:9780814741306