Regionalism and the Reading Class

Regionalism and the Reading Class

Author: Wendy Griswold

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0226309266

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Globalization and the Internet are smothering cultural regionalism, that sense of place that flourished in simpler times. These two villains are also prime suspects in the death of reading. Or so alarming reports about our homogenous and dumbed-down culture would have it, but as Regionalism and the Reading Class shows, neither of these claims stands up under scrutiny—quite the contrary. Wendy Griswold draws on cases from Italy, Norway, and the United States to show that fans of books form their own reading class, with a distinctive demographic profile separate from the general public. This reading class is modest in size but intense in its literary practices. Paradoxically these educated and mobile elites work hard to put down local roots by, among other strategies, exploring regional writing. Ultimately, due to the technological, economic, and political advantages they wield, cosmopolitan readers are able to celebrate, perpetuate, and reinvigorate local culture. Griswold’s study will appeal to students of cultural sociology and the history of the book—and her findings will be welcome news to anyone worried about the future of reading or the eclipse of place.


Book Synopsis Regionalism and the Reading Class by : Wendy Griswold

Download or read book Regionalism and the Reading Class written by Wendy Griswold and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Globalization and the Internet are smothering cultural regionalism, that sense of place that flourished in simpler times. These two villains are also prime suspects in the death of reading. Or so alarming reports about our homogenous and dumbed-down culture would have it, but as Regionalism and the Reading Class shows, neither of these claims stands up under scrutiny—quite the contrary. Wendy Griswold draws on cases from Italy, Norway, and the United States to show that fans of books form their own reading class, with a distinctive demographic profile separate from the general public. This reading class is modest in size but intense in its literary practices. Paradoxically these educated and mobile elites work hard to put down local roots by, among other strategies, exploring regional writing. Ultimately, due to the technological, economic, and political advantages they wield, cosmopolitan readers are able to celebrate, perpetuate, and reinvigorate local culture. Griswold’s study will appeal to students of cultural sociology and the history of the book—and her findings will be welcome news to anyone worried about the future of reading or the eclipse of place.

Cultures and Societies in a Changing World

Cultures and Societies in a Changing World

Author: Wendy Griswold

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2012-01-10

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1452289409

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In the Fourth Edition of Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, author Wendy Griswold illuminates how culture shapes our social world and how society shapes culture. Through this book, students will gain an understanding of the sociology of culture and explore stories, beliefs, media, ideas, art, religious practices, fashions, and rituals from a sociological perspective. Cultural examples from multiple countries and time periods will broaden students' global understanding. Students will develop a deeper appreciation of culture and society from this text, gleaning insights that will help them overcome cultural misunderstandings, conflicts, and ignorance and that will help equip them to live their professional and personal lives as effective, wise citizens of the world.


Book Synopsis Cultures and Societies in a Changing World by : Wendy Griswold

Download or read book Cultures and Societies in a Changing World written by Wendy Griswold and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2012-01-10 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Fourth Edition of Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, author Wendy Griswold illuminates how culture shapes our social world and how society shapes culture. Through this book, students will gain an understanding of the sociology of culture and explore stories, beliefs, media, ideas, art, religious practices, fashions, and rituals from a sociological perspective. Cultural examples from multiple countries and time periods will broaden students' global understanding. Students will develop a deeper appreciation of culture and society from this text, gleaning insights that will help them overcome cultural misunderstandings, conflicts, and ignorance and that will help equip them to live their professional and personal lives as effective, wise citizens of the world.

Writing Out of Place

Writing Out of Place

Author: Judith Fetterley

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 440

ISBN-13: 9780252027673

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"In a series of sketches, regionalist writers such as Alice Cary, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Grace King, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Sui Sin Far, and Mary Austin critique the approach to regional subjects characteristic of local color and present narrators who serve as cultural interpreters for persons often considered "out of place" by urban readers. In their approach to these writers, Fetterley and Pryse offer contemporary readers an alternative vantage point from which to consider questions of regions and regionalism in the global economy of our own time."--Jacket.


Book Synopsis Writing Out of Place by : Judith Fetterley

Download or read book Writing Out of Place written by Judith Fetterley and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In a series of sketches, regionalist writers such as Alice Cary, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Grace King, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Sui Sin Far, and Mary Austin critique the approach to regional subjects characteristic of local color and present narrators who serve as cultural interpreters for persons often considered "out of place" by urban readers. In their approach to these writers, Fetterley and Pryse offer contemporary readers an alternative vantage point from which to consider questions of regions and regionalism in the global economy of our own time."--Jacket.

Cultures of Letters

Cultures of Letters

Author: Richard H. Brodhead

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9780226075266

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Richard H. Brodhead uses a great variety of historical sources, many of them considered here for the first time, to reconstruct the institutionalized literary worlds that coexisted in nineteenth-century America: the middle-class domestic culture of letters, the culture of mass-produced cheap reading, the militantly hierarchical high culture of the post-Civil War decades, and the literary culture of post-emancipation black education. Moving across a range of writers familiar and unfamiliar, and relating groups of writers often considered in artificial isolation, Brodhead describes how these socially structured worlds of writing shaped the terms of literary practice for the authors who inhabited them.


Book Synopsis Cultures of Letters by : Richard H. Brodhead

Download or read book Cultures of Letters written by Richard H. Brodhead and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard H. Brodhead uses a great variety of historical sources, many of them considered here for the first time, to reconstruct the institutionalized literary worlds that coexisted in nineteenth-century America: the middle-class domestic culture of letters, the culture of mass-produced cheap reading, the militantly hierarchical high culture of the post-Civil War decades, and the literary culture of post-emancipation black education. Moving across a range of writers familiar and unfamiliar, and relating groups of writers often considered in artificial isolation, Brodhead describes how these socially structured worlds of writing shaped the terms of literary practice for the authors who inhabited them.

Sum of the Parts

Sum of the Parts

Author: Kent C Ryden

Publisher: University of Iowa Press

Published: 2011-04-01

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1587299887

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Proponents of the new regional history understand that regional identities are constructed and contested, multifarious and not monolithic, that they involve questions of dominance and power, and that their nature is inherently political. In this lively new book, writing in the spirit of these understandings, Kent Ryden engagingly examines works of American regional writing to show us how literary partisans of place create and recreate, attack and defend, argue over and dramatize the meaning and identity of their regions in the pages of their books. Cleverly drawing upon mathematical models that complement his ideas and focusing on both classic and contemporary literary regionalists, Ryden demonstrates that regionalism, in the cultural sense, retains a great deal of power as a framework for literary interpretation. For New England he examines such writers as Robert Frost and Hayden Carruth, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Edith Wharton, and Carolyn Chute and Russell Banks to demonstrate that today’s regionalists inspire closer, more democratic readings of life and landscape. For the West and South, he describes Wallace Stegner’s and William Faulkner’s use of region to, respectively, exclude and evade or confront and indict. For the Midwest, he focuses on C. J. Hribal, William Least Heat-Moon, Paul Gruchow, and others to demonstrate that midwesterners continually construct the past anew from the materials at hand, filling the seemingly empty midlands with history and significance. Ryden reveals that there are many Wests, many New Englands, many Souths, and many Midwests, all raising similar issues about the cultural politics of region and place. Writing with appealing freshness and a sense of adventure, he shows us that place, and the stories that emerge from and define place, can be a source of subversive energy that blunts the homogenizing force of region, inscribing marginal places and people back onto the imaginative surface of the landscape when we read it on a place-by-place, landscape-by-landscape, book-by-book basis.


Book Synopsis Sum of the Parts by : Kent C Ryden

Download or read book Sum of the Parts written by Kent C Ryden and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2011-04-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proponents of the new regional history understand that regional identities are constructed and contested, multifarious and not monolithic, that they involve questions of dominance and power, and that their nature is inherently political. In this lively new book, writing in the spirit of these understandings, Kent Ryden engagingly examines works of American regional writing to show us how literary partisans of place create and recreate, attack and defend, argue over and dramatize the meaning and identity of their regions in the pages of their books. Cleverly drawing upon mathematical models that complement his ideas and focusing on both classic and contemporary literary regionalists, Ryden demonstrates that regionalism, in the cultural sense, retains a great deal of power as a framework for literary interpretation. For New England he examines such writers as Robert Frost and Hayden Carruth, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Edith Wharton, and Carolyn Chute and Russell Banks to demonstrate that today’s regionalists inspire closer, more democratic readings of life and landscape. For the West and South, he describes Wallace Stegner’s and William Faulkner’s use of region to, respectively, exclude and evade or confront and indict. For the Midwest, he focuses on C. J. Hribal, William Least Heat-Moon, Paul Gruchow, and others to demonstrate that midwesterners continually construct the past anew from the materials at hand, filling the seemingly empty midlands with history and significance. Ryden reveals that there are many Wests, many New Englands, many Souths, and many Midwests, all raising similar issues about the cultural politics of region and place. Writing with appealing freshness and a sense of adventure, he shows us that place, and the stories that emerge from and define place, can be a source of subversive energy that blunts the homogenizing force of region, inscribing marginal places and people back onto the imaginative surface of the landscape when we read it on a place-by-place, landscape-by-landscape, book-by-book basis.

Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments

Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments

Author: Inoue-Smith, Yukiko

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2020-06-26

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 1799840379

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The mission of higher education in the 21st century must focus on optimizing learning for all students. In a shift from prioritizing effective teaching to active learning, it is understood that computer-enhanced environments provide a variety of ways to reach a wide range of learners who have differing backgrounds, ages, learning needs, and expectations. Integrating technology into teaching assumes greater importance to improve the learning experience. Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments is a collection of innovative research that explores the link between effective course design and student engagement and optimizes learning and assessments in technology-enhanced environments and among diverse student populations. Its focus is on providing an understanding of the essential link between practices for effective “activities” and strategies for effective “assessments,” as well as providing examples of course designs aligned with assessments, positioning college educators both as leaders and followers in the cycle of lifelong learning. While highlighting a broad range of topics including collaborative teaching, active learning, and flipped classroom methods, this book is ideally designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, administrators, researchers, academicians, and students.


Book Synopsis Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments by : Inoue-Smith, Yukiko

Download or read book Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments written by Inoue-Smith, Yukiko and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2020-06-26 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The mission of higher education in the 21st century must focus on optimizing learning for all students. In a shift from prioritizing effective teaching to active learning, it is understood that computer-enhanced environments provide a variety of ways to reach a wide range of learners who have differing backgrounds, ages, learning needs, and expectations. Integrating technology into teaching assumes greater importance to improve the learning experience. Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments is a collection of innovative research that explores the link between effective course design and student engagement and optimizes learning and assessments in technology-enhanced environments and among diverse student populations. Its focus is on providing an understanding of the essential link between practices for effective “activities” and strategies for effective “assessments,” as well as providing examples of course designs aligned with assessments, positioning college educators both as leaders and followers in the cycle of lifelong learning. While highlighting a broad range of topics including collaborative teaching, active learning, and flipped classroom methods, this book is ideally designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, administrators, researchers, academicians, and students.

Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires

Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires

Author: Motoki Nomachi

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-09-07

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 100093604X

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This volume probes into the mechanisms of how languages are created, legitimized, maintained, or destroyed in the service of the extant nation-states across Central Europe. Through chapters from contributors in North America, Europe, and Asia, the book offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the rise of the ethnolinguistic nation-state during the past century as the sole legitimate model of statehood in today’s Central Europe. The collection’s focus is on the last three decades, namely the postcommunist period, taking into consideration the effects of the recent rise of cyberspace and the resulting radical forms of populism across contemporary Central Europe. It analyzes languages and their uses not as given by history, nature, or deity but as constructs produced, changed, maintained, and abandoned by humans and their groups. In this way, the volume contributes saliently to the store of knowledge on the latest social (sociolinguistic) and political history of the region’s languages, including their functioning in respective national polities and on the internet. Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires is a compelling resource for historians, linguists, and political scientists who work on Central and Eastern Europe.


Book Synopsis Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires by : Motoki Nomachi

Download or read book Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires written by Motoki Nomachi and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-07 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume probes into the mechanisms of how languages are created, legitimized, maintained, or destroyed in the service of the extant nation-states across Central Europe. Through chapters from contributors in North America, Europe, and Asia, the book offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the rise of the ethnolinguistic nation-state during the past century as the sole legitimate model of statehood in today’s Central Europe. The collection’s focus is on the last three decades, namely the postcommunist period, taking into consideration the effects of the recent rise of cyberspace and the resulting radical forms of populism across contemporary Central Europe. It analyzes languages and their uses not as given by history, nature, or deity but as constructs produced, changed, maintained, and abandoned by humans and their groups. In this way, the volume contributes saliently to the store of knowledge on the latest social (sociolinguistic) and political history of the region’s languages, including their functioning in respective national polities and on the internet. Languages and Nationalism Instead of Empires is a compelling resource for historians, linguists, and political scientists who work on Central and Eastern Europe.

American Nations

American Nations

Author: Colin Woodard

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-09-25

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0143122029

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• A New Republic Best Book of the Year • The Globalist Top Books of the Year • Winner of the Maine Literary Award for Non-fiction Particularly relevant in understanding who voted for who during presidential elections, this is an endlessly fascinating look at American regionalism and the eleven “nations” that continue to shape North America According to award-winning journalist and historian Colin Woodard, North America is made up of eleven distinct nations, each with its own unique historical roots. In American Nations he takes readers on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, offering a revolutionary and revelatory take on American identity, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and continue to mold our future. From the Deep South to the Far West, to Yankeedom to El Norte, Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how each region continues to uphold its distinguishing ideals and identities today, with results that can be seen in the composition of the U.S. Congress or on the county-by-county election maps of any hotly contested election in our history.


Book Synopsis American Nations by : Colin Woodard

Download or read book American Nations written by Colin Woodard and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: • A New Republic Best Book of the Year • The Globalist Top Books of the Year • Winner of the Maine Literary Award for Non-fiction Particularly relevant in understanding who voted for who during presidential elections, this is an endlessly fascinating look at American regionalism and the eleven “nations” that continue to shape North America According to award-winning journalist and historian Colin Woodard, North America is made up of eleven distinct nations, each with its own unique historical roots. In American Nations he takes readers on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, offering a revolutionary and revelatory take on American identity, and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and continue to mold our future. From the Deep South to the Far West, to Yankeedom to El Norte, Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how each region continues to uphold its distinguishing ideals and identities today, with results that can be seen in the composition of the U.S. Congress or on the county-by-county election maps of any hotly contested election in our history.

Dear Appalachia

Dear Appalachia

Author: Emily Satterwhite

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2011-10-01

Total Pages: 397

ISBN-13: 0813130115

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Much criticism has been directed at negative stereotypes of Appalachia perpetuated by movies, television shows, and news media. Books, on the other hand, often draw enthusiastic praise for their celebration of the simplicity and authenticity of the Appalachian region. Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 employs the innovative new strategy of examining fan mail, reviews, and readers’ geographic affiliations to understand how readers have imagined the region and what purposes these imagined geographies have served for them. As Emily Satterwhite traces the changing visions of Appalachia across the decades, from the Gilded Age (1865–1895) to the present, she finds that every generation has produced an audience hungry for a romantic version of Appalachia. According to Satterwhite, best-selling fiction has portrayed Appalachia as a distinctive place apart from the mainstream United States, has offered cosmopolitan white readers a sense of identity and community, and has engendered feelings of national and cultural pride. Thanks in part to readers’ faith in authors as authentic representatives of the regions they write about, Satterwhite argues, regional fiction often plays a role in creating and affirming regional identity. By mapping the geographic locations of fans, Dear Appalachia demonstrates that mobile white readers in particular, including regional elites, have idealized Appalachia as rooted, static, and protected from commercial society in order to reassure themselves that there remains an “authentic” America untouched by global currents. Investigating texts such as John Fox Jr.’s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), Harriette Arnow’s The Dollmaker (1954), James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970), and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain (1997), Dear Appalachia moves beyond traditional studies of regional fiction to document the functions of these narratives in the lives of readers, revealing not only what people have thought about Appalachia, but why.


Book Synopsis Dear Appalachia by : Emily Satterwhite

Download or read book Dear Appalachia written by Emily Satterwhite and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2011-10-01 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much criticism has been directed at negative stereotypes of Appalachia perpetuated by movies, television shows, and news media. Books, on the other hand, often draw enthusiastic praise for their celebration of the simplicity and authenticity of the Appalachian region. Dear Appalachia: Readers, Identity, and Popular Fiction since 1878 employs the innovative new strategy of examining fan mail, reviews, and readers’ geographic affiliations to understand how readers have imagined the region and what purposes these imagined geographies have served for them. As Emily Satterwhite traces the changing visions of Appalachia across the decades, from the Gilded Age (1865–1895) to the present, she finds that every generation has produced an audience hungry for a romantic version of Appalachia. According to Satterwhite, best-selling fiction has portrayed Appalachia as a distinctive place apart from the mainstream United States, has offered cosmopolitan white readers a sense of identity and community, and has engendered feelings of national and cultural pride. Thanks in part to readers’ faith in authors as authentic representatives of the regions they write about, Satterwhite argues, regional fiction often plays a role in creating and affirming regional identity. By mapping the geographic locations of fans, Dear Appalachia demonstrates that mobile white readers in particular, including regional elites, have idealized Appalachia as rooted, static, and protected from commercial society in order to reassure themselves that there remains an “authentic” America untouched by global currents. Investigating texts such as John Fox Jr.’s The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1908), Harriette Arnow’s The Dollmaker (1954), James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970), and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain (1997), Dear Appalachia moves beyond traditional studies of regional fiction to document the functions of these narratives in the lives of readers, revealing not only what people have thought about Appalachia, but why.

What Readers Do

What Readers Do

Author: Beth Driscoll

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-02-21

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1350375152

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Shining a spotlight on everyday readers of the 21st century, Beth Driscoll explores how contemporary readers of Anglophone fiction interact with the book industry, digital environments, and each other. We live in an era when book clubs, bibliomemoirs, Bookstagram and BookTok are as valuable to some readers as solitary reading moments. The product of nearly two decades of qualitative research into readers and reading culture, What Readers Do examines reading through three dimensions - aesthetic conduct, moral conduct, and self-care – to show how readers intertwine private and social behaviors, and both reinforce and oppose the structures of capitalism. Analyzing reading as a post-digital practice that is a synthesis of both print and digital modes and on- and offline behaviors, Driscoll presents a methodology for studying readers that connects book history, literary studies, sociology, and actor-network theory. Arguing for the vitality, agency, and creativity of readers, this book sheds light on how we read now - and on how much more readers do than just read.


Book Synopsis What Readers Do by : Beth Driscoll

Download or read book What Readers Do written by Beth Driscoll and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-02-21 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shining a spotlight on everyday readers of the 21st century, Beth Driscoll explores how contemporary readers of Anglophone fiction interact with the book industry, digital environments, and each other. We live in an era when book clubs, bibliomemoirs, Bookstagram and BookTok are as valuable to some readers as solitary reading moments. The product of nearly two decades of qualitative research into readers and reading culture, What Readers Do examines reading through three dimensions - aesthetic conduct, moral conduct, and self-care – to show how readers intertwine private and social behaviors, and both reinforce and oppose the structures of capitalism. Analyzing reading as a post-digital practice that is a synthesis of both print and digital modes and on- and offline behaviors, Driscoll presents a methodology for studying readers that connects book history, literary studies, sociology, and actor-network theory. Arguing for the vitality, agency, and creativity of readers, this book sheds light on how we read now - and on how much more readers do than just read.