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"Everyone is occupied, consciously or unconsciously, with identity--one's origin and the question of one's place in humankind and society of the past, present, and future. Identity and memory are not stable and objective things, but representations or constructions of reality related to a particular interest, such as class, gender, of power relations. Identity is problematic without history and without the commemoration of history, and of course such remembrance may distort historical events and facts. When dealing with gardens, a substantial part of our physical environment, there are always unspoken questions of identity." Places of Commemoration examines commemorative sites of different character, including gardens, landscapes, memorials, cemeteries, and sites of former Nazi concentration camps, detailing the ideas behind the creation of memorials and monuments and the struggles over the narratives they present.
Early in July 1997, scholars from around the world met in Volos, Greece, to discuss the work of American writer and international traveler Herman Melville. Offering insights into Melville the man and Melville the artist, the papers presented at this conference reflected a variety of interdisciplinary, international, and intergenerational perspectives. With the participation of esteemed Melville critics and many young scholars gaining recognition for their innovative and incisive work in the area of Melville studies, this unique conference afforded all who attended an overview of current approaches to Melville and detailed thermatic examinations of his specific works and themes.
In recent years, genealogical websites and government agencies have made millions of valuable historical documents digitally available to the public. There is a tremendous amount of information that can be gleaned from these documents to aid scholars interested in social history. This volume brings together researchers presenting historically contextualized family case studies as a lens to enrich the reader’s understanding of the past.
The humor of the Old South—tales, almanac entries, turf reports, historical sketches, gentlemen's essays on outdoor sports, profiles of local characters—flourished between 1830 and 1860. The genre's popularity and influence can be traced in the works of major southern writers such as William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, and Harry Crews, as well as in contemporary popular culture focusing on the rural South. This collection of essays includes some of the past twenty five years' best writing on the subject, as well as ten new works bringing fresh insights and original approaches to the subject. A number of the essays focus on well known humorists such as Aug...
American historians have typically argued that a shared experience of time worked to bind the antebellum nation together. Trains, technology, and expanding market forces catapulted the United States into the future on a straight line of progressive time. The nation's exceedingly diverse population could cluster around this common temporality as one forward-looking people. In a bold revision of this narrative, Archives of American Time examines American literature's figures and forms to disclose the competing temporalities that in fact defined the antebellum period. Through discussions that link literature's essential qualities to social theories of modernity, Lloyd Pratt asserts that the com...
The top hat and stars and stripes that characterize Uncle Sam today were first worn by Yankee actors portraying Brother Jonathan. This book explores the complex emblematic function of the Brother Jonathan figure and its changing meaning through the decades and in a multitude of popular media.
The Old Southwest flourished between 1830 and 1860, but its brand of humor lives on in the writings of Mark Twain, the novels of William Faulkner, the television series The Beverly Hillbillies, the material of comedian Jeff Foxworthy, and even cyberspace, where nonsoutherners can come up to speed on subjects like hickphonics. The first book on its subject, The Enduring Legacy of Old Southwest Humor engages topics ranging from folklore to feminism to the Internet as it pays tribute to a distinctly American comic style that has continued to reinvent itself. The book begins by examining frontier southern humor as manifested in works of Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Wel...
Examines how key nineteenth-century American writers attempted to combat, understand, and incorporate the advent of photography in their fiction and analyzes the impact of photography on narrative histories of the nineteenth century.
Paul Bunyan and Babe, Native American legends, ghosts, river mysteries, and more populate the pages of Spooky Wisconsin. You'll meet the shrouded horseman of Milwaukee, the troll of Mount Horeb, the dark horse of the Dells, and more as you join folklorist S. E. Schlosser to discover the spooky stories from the Badger state, from the Illinois border to Lake Superior, and the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan.
Pull up a chair or gather 'round the campfire and get ready for creepy tales of ghostly hauntings, eerie happenings, and other strange occurrences from times past! Great Lakes folklore traditions are kept alive in these expert retellings by master storyteller S.E. Schlosser and through artist Paul G. Hoffman's evocative illustrations. You'll meet ghosts and witches, hear things that go bump in the night, and feel an icy wind on the back of your neck on a warm summer evening. The stories in this entertaining and compelling collection will have you looking over your shoulder again and again.