Chicago
A Literary History

The book provides an inclusive, engaging, innovative, and interdisciplinary overview of the often overlooked literary history of Chicago.

Frederik Byrn Køhlert (Edited by)

9781108477512, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 September 2021

350 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 3.2 cm, 0.84 kg

Chicago occupies a central position in both the geography and literary history of the United States. From its founding in 1833 through to its modern incarnation, the city has served as both a thoroughfare for the nation's goods and a crossroads for its cultural energies. The idea of Chicago as a crossroads of modern America is what guides this literary history, which traces how writers have responded to a rapidly changing urban environment and labored to make sense of its place in - and implications for - the larger whole. In writing that engages with the world's first skyscrapers and elevated railroads, extreme economic and racial inequality, a growing middle class, ethnic and multiethnic neighborhoods, the Great Migration of African Americans, and the city's contemporary incarnation as a cosmopolitan urban center, Chicago has been home to a diverse literature that has both captured and guided the themes of modern America.

Introduction: The Literary History of Chicago Frederik Byrn Køhlert
Part I. The Rise of Chicago and the Literary West: 1. From Prairie to Metropolis: Chicago as the American 'Shock City' Christophe Den Tandt
2. Birth, Fire, and Rebirth: Edward Payson Roe's Barriers Burned Away and the Invention of Chicago Literature Charles Byler
3. 'This Broad, free inland America of Ours': Hamlin Garland, Chicago, and the Literary West Christine Holbo
4. White City: The World's Columbian Exposition in Literature Rebecca S. Graff
5. New Realities, New Realisms: Chicago Literature against the Genteel Tradition Robert Birdwell
Part II. Business Unusual: A New Urban American Literature: 6. Among the Skyscrapers: Henry B. Fuller's Chicago Novels Joseph A. Dimuro
7. The Price of Success: Robert Herrick's the Memoirs of an American Citizen and the American Business Novel Jose Fernandez
8. 'A Story of Chicago': The Future of Place in Frank Norris's The Pit Jason Puskar
9. Amid Forces: Theodore Dreiser's Chicago T. Austin Graham
10. Eugene Field, Finley Peter Dunne, and George Ade: A New Urban Vernacular John Wharton Lowe
Part III. Radicalism, Modernism, and the Chicago Renaissance: 11. Progressive Chicago: Upton Sinclair, Jane Addams, and Social Reform Literature Rachel Elin Nolan
12. From the Prairie to the City: Willa Cather's 'City of Feeling' Mark A. Robison
13. Poetry, the Little Review, and Chicago Modernism Bartholomew Brinkman
14. A Spirit of Two Ages: The Romantic Modernism of Carl Sandburg's Chicago Poems John Marsh
15. Building a Movement: Mary Reynolds Aldis and Little Theatre in Chicago Megan E. Geigner
16. Father to Son: Floyd Dell, Sherwood Anderson, and the Chicago Renaissance Timothy B. Spears
Part IV. A City of Neighborhoods: The Great Depression, Sociology, and the Black Chicago Renaissance: 17. Chicago Ecology and James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan Moacir P. de Sá Pereira
18. Chicago gets the Blues: Migration, Depression, and the Black Renaissance Richard A. Courage
19. Black Chicago: Richard Wright's South Side William R. Nash
20. Life in Bronzeville: Humanism and Community in the Work of Gwendolyn Brooks Courtney Pierre Joseph
21. Hustlers, Junkies, and Prostitutes: Nelson Algren's White Slums Ian Peddie
22. From Emptyland to Uncanny City: Saul Bellow's Jewish Chicago Alan Bilton
Part V. Traditions and Futures: Contemporary Chicago Literatures: 23. Division Street America: The Nine Chicago Literary Lives of Studs Terkel Tony Macaluso
24. Sexual and Other Perversities: David Mamet and Vontemporary Chicago Theater Ira Nadel
25. Chicago Crime, Blue Collar and White: Sara Paretsky's V.I. Warshawski Novels Charlotte Beyer
26. Drawing Chicago: Chris Ware's Graphic City Frederik Byrn Køhlert
27. Across Neighborhood and National Boundaries: Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, and Mexican Chicago Olga L. Herrera
28. Stuart Dybek and the New Chicago's Literature of Neighborhood Carlo Rotella
29. Chicago Now: Aleksandar Hemon, Dmitry Samarov, Erika L. Sánchez and the Contemporary City of Immigrants Sonia Weiner
30. Afterword: What Will Become of Us? The Future of Chicago Literatures Bill Savage.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: general [DSB], Literature: history & criticism [DS]