Literature and Cultural Criticism in the 1950's

Literature and Cultural Criticism in the 1950's PDF Author: Susan Brook
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781403941060
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Susan Brook argues that the history of Left literary and cultural criticism in Britain is characterized by a systematic failure to recognize the way it has been shaped by issues of gender, and that it has been marked by a history of romanticizing the feeling male body and excluding the "inauthentic" feminine. This study charts the origins of the exclusion in the 1950s focusing on the fifties cultural criticism associated with the New Left; the writing of the so-called "angry young man" (such as Amis's Lucky Jim and John Osborne's Look Back in Anger); and the much overlooked category of women's writing of the period.

Literature and Cultural Criticism in the 1950's

Literature and Cultural Criticism in the 1950's PDF Author: Susan Brook
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9781403941060
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Susan Brook argues that the history of Left literary and cultural criticism in Britain is characterized by a systematic failure to recognize the way it has been shaped by issues of gender, and that it has been marked by a history of romanticizing the feeling male body and excluding the "inauthentic" feminine. This study charts the origins of the exclusion in the 1950s focusing on the fifties cultural criticism associated with the New Left; the writing of the so-called "angry young man" (such as Amis's Lucky Jim and John Osborne's Look Back in Anger); and the much overlooked category of women's writing of the period.

American Culture in the 1950s

American Culture in the 1950s PDF Author: Martin Halliwell
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748628908
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
This book provides a stimulating account of the dominant cultural forms of 1950s America: fiction and poetry; theatre and performance; film and television; music and radio; and the visual arts. Through detailed commentary and focused case studies of influential texts and events - from Invisible Man to West Side Story, from Disneyland to the Seattle World's Fair, from Rear Window to The Americans - the book examines the way in which modernism and the cold war offer two frames of reference for understanding the trajectory of postwar culture. The two core aims of this volume are to chart the changing complexion of American culture in the years following World War II and to provide readers with a critical investigation of 'the 1950s'. The book provides an intellectual context for approaching 1950s American culture and considers the historical impact of the decade on recent social and cultural developments.

American Science Fiction

American Science Fiction PDF Author: Various
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1598531573
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Collects nine classic science fiction novels from 1953 to 1958.

Let's Rock!

Let's Rock! PDF Author: Richard Aquila
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442269375
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Rock & roll was one of the most important cultural developments in post–World War II America, yet its origins are shrouded in myth and legend. Let’s Rock! reclaims the lost history of rock & roll. Based on years of research, as well as interviews with Bo Diddley, Pat Boone, and other rock & roll pioneers, the book offers new information and fresh perspectives about Elvis, the rise of rock & roll, and 1950s America. Rock & roll is intertwined with the rise of a post–World War II youth culture, the emergence of African Americans in society, the growth of consumer culture, technological change, the expansion of mass media, and the rise of a Cold War culture that endorsed traditional values to guard against communism. Richard Aquila’s book demonstrates that early rock & roll was not as rebellious as common wisdom has it. The new sound reflected the conservatism and conformity of the 1950s as much as it did the era’s conflict. Rock & roll supported centrist politics, traditional values, and mainstream attitudes toward race, gender, class, and ethnicity. The musical evidence proves that most teenagers of the 1950s were not that different from their parents and grandparents when it came to basic beliefs, interests, and pastimes. Young and old alike were preoccupied by the same concerns, tensions, and insecurities. Rock & roll continues to permeate the fabric of modern life, and understanding the music’s origins reminds us of the common history we all share. Music lovers who grew up during rock & roll’s early years as well as those who have come to it more recently will find Let’s Rock an exciting historical and musical adventure.

Highsmith

Highsmith PDF Author: Marijane Meaker
Publisher: Cleis Press
ISBN: 1573441716
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The author of Shockproof Sydney Skate provides rare insights into the life of the reclusive lesbian writer and creator of The Talented Mr. Ripley, describing her own romance with Highsmith amidst the bohemian atmosphere of Greenwich Village during the 1950s. Original.

Marjorie Morningstar

Marjorie Morningstar PDF Author: Herman Wouk
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316248541
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
Now hailed as a "proto-feminist classic" (Vulture), Pulitzer Prize winner Herman Wouk's powerful coming-of-age novel about an ambitious young woman pursuing her artistic dreams in New York City has been a perennial favorite since it was first a bestseller in the 1950s. A starry-eyed young beauty, Marjorie Morgenstern is nineteen years old when she leaves home to accept the job of her dreams--working in a summer-stock company for Noel Airman, its talented and intensely charismatic director. Released from the social constraints of her traditional Jewish family, and thrown into the glorious, colorful world of theater, Marjorie finds herself entangled in a powerful affair with the man destined to become the greatest--and the most destructive--love of her life. Rich with humor and poignancy, Marjorie Morningstar is a classic love story, one that spans two continents and two decades in the life of its heroine. "I read it and I thought, 'Oh, God, this is me.'" --Scarlet Johansson

The Caine Mutiny

The Caine Mutiny PDF Author: Herman Wouk
Publisher: Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday 1951.
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
Each decade new readers discover the characters and curious activities aboard the U.S.S. "Caine in this classic tale of pathos, humor, and scope.

Men in the Middle

Men in the Middle PDF Author: James Gilbert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226293246
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
While the 1950s have been popularly portrayed-on television and in the movies and literature-as a conformist and conservative age, the decade is better understood as a revolutionary time for politics, economy, mass media, and family life. Magazines, films, newspapers, and television of the day scrutinized every aspect of this changing society, paying special attention to the lifestyles of the middle-class men and their families who were moving to the suburbs newly springing up outside American cities. Much of this attention focused on issues of masculinity, both to enforce accepted ideas and to understand serious departures from the norm. Neither a period of "male crisis" nor yet a time of free experimentation, the decade was marked by contradiction and a wide spectrum of role models. This was, in short, the age of Tennessee Williams as well as John Wayne. In Men in the Middle, James Gilbert uncovers a fascinating and extensive body of literature that confronts the problems and possibilities of expressing masculinity in the 1950s. Drawing on the biographies of men who explored manhood either in their writings or in their public personas, Gilbert examines the stories of several of the most important figures of the day-revivalist Billy Graham, playwright Tennessee Williams, sociologist David Riesman, sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, Playboy literary editor Auguste Comte Spectorsky, and TV-sitcom dad Ozzie Nelson-and allows us to see beyond the inherited stereotypes of the time. Each of these stories, in Gilbert's hands, adds crucial dimensions to our understanding of masculinity the 1950s. No longer will this era be seen solely in terms of the conformist man in the gray flannel suit or the Marlboro Man.

The Other Blacklist

The Other Blacklist PDF Author: Mary Washington
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231152701
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Examines African American writers and artists of the 1950s, tracing leftist ideas and activism within their work, recounts the events of the 1959 Black Writers' Conference and explores the ongoing influence of the Black Popular Front.

Pulp

Pulp PDF Author: Robin Talley
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488095272
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
“Suspenseful parallel lesbian love stories deftly illuminate important events in LGBTQ history” in the New York Times–bestselling author’s YA novel (Kirkus Reviews). In 1955, eighteen-year-old Janet Jones keeps the love she shares with her best friend Marie a secret. It’s not easy being gay in Washington, DC, in the age of McCarthyism, but when she discovers a series of books about women falling in love with other women, it awakens something in Janet. As she juggles a romance she must keep hidden and a newfound ambition to write and publish her own story, she risks exposing herself—and Marie—to a danger all too real. Sixty-two years later, Abby Zimet can’t stop thinking about her senior project and its subject—classic 1950s lesbian pulp fiction. Between the pages of her favorite book, the stresses of Abby’s own life are lost to the fictional hopes, desires, and tragedies of the characters she’s reading about. She feels especially connected to one author, a woman who wrote under the pseudonym “Marian Love,” and becomes determined to track her down and discover her true identity. In this novel told in dual narratives, New York Times–bestselling author Robin Talley weaves together the lives of two young women connected across generations through the power of words. A stunning story of bravery, love, how far we’ve come and how much farther we have to go.