The Cambridge Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Novel and Politics

This volume analyzes how political movements, ideas, and events shaped the American novel.

Bryan M. Santin (Edited by)

9781316516485, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 October 2023

398 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 3 cm, 0.75 kg

Surveying the relationship between American politics and the twentieth-century novel, this volume analyzes how political movements, ideas, and events shaped the American novel. It also shows how those political phenomena were shaped in turn by long-form prose fiction. The book is made up of three major sections. The first section considers philosophical ideologies and broad political movements that were both politically and literarily significant in the twentieth-century United States, including progressive liberalism, conservatism, socialism and communism, feminism, and Black liberation movements. The second section analyzes the evolving political valences of key popular genres and literary forms in the twentieth-century American novel, focusing on crime fiction, science fiction, postmodern metafiction and immigrant fiction. The third section examines ten diverse politically-minded novels that serve as exemplary case studies across the century. Combining detailed literary analysis with innovative political theory, this Companion provides a groundbreaking study of the politics of twentieth-century American fiction.

Introduction Bryan M. Santin
Part I. Ideologies and Movements: 1. Progressive liberalism Johannes Voelz
2. Conservatism Stephen Schryer
3. Neoliberalism Mitchum Huehls
4. Socialism and communism Mark W. Van Wienen
5. Feminisms Jean Lutes
6. Sexual liberation movements Guy Davidson
7. Black liberation movements Sheena Michele Mason and Dana A. Williams
Part II. The Politics of Genre and Form: 8. Crime Fiction Andrew Pepper
9. Science fiction Jason Haslam
10. Western Fiction Stephen J. Mexal
11. Literary Realist Fiction Matthew Shipe
12. Immigrant Fiction Heather Hathaway
13. Gothic horror fiction Kevin Corstorphine
14. Postmodern metafiction Rob Turner
Part III. Case Studies: 15. Herland (1915): Charlotte Perkins Gilman Cynthia J. Davis
16. It Can't Happen Here (1935): Sinclair Lewis Christopher Vials
17. All the King's Men (1946): Robert Penn Warren Jonathan S. Cullick
18. Invisible Man (1952): Ralph Ellison Nathaniel Mills
19. The Left Hand of Darkness (1969): Ursula K. Le Guin Tony Burns
20. If Beale Street Could Talk (1974): James Baldwin Douglas Field
21. The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975): Edward Abbey Christopher K. Coffman
22. Ceremony (1977): Leslie Marmon Silko Sandra M. Gustafson
23. Parable Series (1993, 1998): Octavia E. Butler Claire P. Curtis
24. The Underground Railroad (2016): Colson Whitehead Bryan M. Santin.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]