{"product_id":"bodies-of-reform-the-rhetoric-of-character-in-gilded-age-america-paperback-softback-9780814741313","title":"Bodies of Reform; The Rhetoric of Character in Gilded Age America (Paperback \/ softback) 9780814741313","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eBodies of Reform\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eThe Rhetoric of Character in Gilded Age America\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJames B. Salazar (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780814741313\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 15 September 2010\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e304 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.431 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eSalazar's splendid study gives this term a cultural history, and in the process shows how the rhetoric of character has profound effects on what we do from child-rearing, to physical exercise, to racial exclusion, to immigrant inclusion, and the contours of democratic citizenship itself. - Karen Sánchez-Eppler,Amherst College A comprehensive and original study of the various ways the rhetoric of character appeared in American culture. - Debra Bernardi (American Literary Realism) Dense and thought-provoking. - J.J. Benardete (Choice) This detailed and carefully argued book charts the development of character...drawing on a rich archive of primary sources. - William Gleason (The Journal of American History) James Salazar takes the term \u0026amp; characterpervasive and elusiveand accounts for its centrality by showing how it embodies the contradictions of modern America. In a series of intricate literary readings, he analyzes the ways in which the late-nineteenth-century obsession with building \u0026amp; character vivified social distinctions but also, in its instabilities, became the pivot for critique. - Samuel Otter,University of California, Berkeley [Salazar] ably integrates an impressive array of materials into his readings. (New England Quarterly)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003ePart of the American Literatures Initiative Series \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e From the patricians of the early republic to post-Reconstruction racial scientists, from fin de siècle 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.\u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"NYU Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52563875299608,"sku":"9780814741313","price":22.86,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/bodies-of-reform-the-rhetoric-of-character-in-gilded-age-america-paperback-softback-9780814741313","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}