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Conjuring September 11, 2001: Midwest Narratives in the Time of Death
AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF Jonathon M. Josten for the degree of Master of Arts in English presented on May 12, 2015. Title: Conjuring September 11, 2001: Midwest Narratives in the Time of Death Abstract approved: ______________________________________________________ Raymond J. Malewitz Over the past fourteen years since the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Americans of varied political persuasions have continually identified the day as a defining moment in the history of the nation, which caused a rupture in the cultural rhythm and psyche. This sensibility is present in many narratives that considered the uniqueness of the day, with the majority of these set in New York City. However, for most Americans, the attacks were experienced in a non-local manner mediated through various technologies as well as reactionary policies of the Bush administration and retrospective accounts that followed from critics and authors. Given the disparity between narratives that surround eye-witness of the event and those perceived from afar, this thesis attempts to explore and reconcile these geographical and psychological differences by examining fictive works often described as “September 11”, which are set in the Midwest. Through this investigation of place, technologies, and difference, we can trace the development of the cultural memory of these events from catastrophe to commemoration as the analysis moves through nationalism, terrorism, and what might be defined as heartland American conservatism. Ultimately, I argue that though September 11 functioned as a catastrophic event, Americans moved to restore normalcy shortly after the attacks. That is not to say that Americans forgot September 11; instead, pre- September 11 normalcy coexisted within post- September 11 uncertainty. -
Writers Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Monica Ali Isabel Allende Martin Amis Kurt Andersen K
Writers Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Monica Ali Isabel Allende Martin Amis Kurt Andersen K. A. Applegate Jeffrey Archer Diana Athill Paul Auster Wasi Ahmed Victoria Aveyard Kevin Baker Mark Allen Baker Nicholson Baker Iain Banks Russell Banks Julian Barnes Andrea Barrett Max Barry Sebastian Barry Louis Bayard Peter Behrens Elizabeth Berg Wendell Berry Maeve Binchy Dustin Lance Black Holly Black Amy Bloom Chris Bohjalian Roberto Bolano S. J. Bolton William Boyd T. C. Boyle John Boyne Paula Brackston Adam Braver Libba Bray Alan Brennert Andre Brink Max Brooks Dan Brown Don Brown www.downloadexcelfiles.com Christopher Buckley John Burdett James Lee Burke Augusten Burroughs A. S. Byatt Bhalchandra Nemade Peter Cameron W. Bruce Cameron Jacqueline Carey Peter Carey Ron Carlson Stephen L. Carter Eleanor Catton Michael Chabon Diane Chamberlain Jung Chang Kate Christensen Dan Chaon Kelly Cherry Tracy Chevalier Noam Chomsky Tom Clancy Cassandra Clare Susanna Clarke Chris Cleave Ernest Cline Harlan Coben Paulo Coelho J. M. Coetzee Eoin Colfer Suzanne Collins Michael Connelly Pat Conroy Claire Cook Bernard Cornwell Douglas Coupland Michael Cox Jim Crace Michael Crichton Justin Cronin John Crowley Clive Cussler Fred D'Aguiar www.downloadexcelfiles.com Sandra Dallas Edwidge Danticat Kathryn Davis Richard Dawkins Jonathan Dee Frank Delaney Charles de Lint Tatiana de Rosnay Kiran Desai Pete Dexter Anita Diamant Junot Diaz Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni E. L. Doctorow Ivan Doig Stephen R. Donaldson Sara Donati Jennifer Donnelly Emma Donoghue Keith Donohue Roddy Doyle Margaret Drabble Dinesh D'Souza John Dufresne Sarah Dunant Helen Dunmore Mark Dunn James Dashner Elisabetta Dami Jennifer Egan Dave Eggers Tan Twan Eng Louise Erdrich Eugene Dubois Diana Evans Percival Everett J. -
Daniel Green
DANIEL GREEN 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS RADICAL REALISTS “Like Life: Radical Realism and the Fiction of Sam Pink” (5) “Reinforcing Hard Reality: Stephen Dixon” (14) “Sincerity and the Surface: On Nicholson Baker” (19) “Not Somewhere or Anywhere” (Ottessa Moshfegh) (26) “Entering Cross River” (Rion Amilcar Scott) (30) “Contextualized Naturalism: The Artfulness of Russell Banks's Affliction” (36) “Sleights of Hand” (Philip Roth) (46) REGRESSIVE REALISTS “Richard Powers I: Forsaking Illusions” (50) “Lost in the Woods: Richard Powers, The Overstory” (58) “Safely Familiar” (Denis Johnson) (63) “Getting At The Thing Itself” (Kent Haruf” (66) “Endless Talk” (Richard Ford) (71) “Killing the Joke” (Lorrie Moore) (80) “Until the Movie Comes Out” (Richard Russo) (84) “Illusions of Substance” (Charles Baxter) (89) 3 PREFACE The underlying assumption of most of my critical writing has been that, far from representing a tangential, eccentric practice (as much of current literary culture would have it), “experimental” fiction in fact provides an indispensable service in helping to keep the literary resources of fiction refreshed. Often this entails contrasting such fiction with a conventionalized or exhausted realism, which despite the interventions of fabulists and postmodernists (not to mention the efforts of many genre writers) remains more or less the default preference in both American fiction and general-interest literary criticism. But the problem with a blanket critique of realism, especially from the years after World War II, and even more especially -
11 Th Grade American Literature Summer Assignment (20192020 School Y Ear)
6/26/2019 American Lit Summer Reading 2019-20 - Google Docs 11 th Grade American Literature Summer Assignment (20192020 School Y ear) Welcome to American Literature! This summer assignment is meant to keep your reading and writing skills fresh. You should choose carefully —select books that will be interesting and enjoyable for you. Any assignments that do not follow directions exactly will not be accepted. This assignment is due Friday, August 16, 2019 to your American Literature Teacher. This will count as your first formative grade and be used as a diagnostic for your writing ability. Directions: For your summer assignment, please choose o ne of the following books to read. You can choose if your book is Fiction or Nonfiction. Fiction Choices Nonfiction Choices Catch 22 by Joseph Heller The satirical story of a WWII soldier who The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs. An account thinks everyone is trying to kill him and hatches plot after plot to keep of a young African‑American man who escaped Newark, NJ, to attend from having to fly planes again. Yale, but still faced the dangers of the streets when he returned is, Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison The story of an abusive “nuanced and shattering” ( People ) and “mesmeric” ( The New York Southern childhood. Times Book Review ) . The Known World by Edward P. Jones The story of a black, slave Outliers / Blink / The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Fascinating owning family. statistical studies of everyday phenomena. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway A young American The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston There is an anti‑fascist guerilla in the Spanish civil war falls in love with a complex outbreak of ebola virus in an American lab, and other stories of germs woman. -
Sara L. Pfaff English Department, Brown University Box 1852, Providence, RI 02912 Phone: (586) 596-7130 Email: Sara [email protected]
Sara L. Pfaff English Department, Brown University Box 1852, Providence, RI 02912 phone: (586) 596-7130 email: [email protected] Education: Brown University, Providence, RI 2008— Ph.D., English, completion May 2016 M.A., English, May 2010 Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 2003—2008 B.A., English, May 2008 B.A., History, May 2008 Dissertation: “Pluralism and Pathology in Ethnic American Fiction” explores the political implications of alternative configurations of multiethnic communities in American literature since 1965. In particular, my project examines how tropes of pathology and disease reflect—not just bodies that are in transition—but also communities and individuals that are increasingly interconnected, interdependent, and metastable. The pathological and ailing body functions as a literary device that advocates for the centrality of contingency and adaptation within ethnic, political, and social forms of belonging. I argue that this emphasis on contingent identity troubles the reified identity forms disseminated by nationalist ideologies and introduces alternative forms of belonging based in liminality, uncertainty, and debate. Tropes of pathological embodiment in the novels of N. Scott Momaday, John A. Williams, John E. Wideman, Louise Erdrich, Paul Beatty, Sherman Alexie, and Colson Whitehead thus provide a vital critique of (and alternative to) dominant ideologies of multiculturalism, which have recently been shown as reinforcing, rather than rectifying, racial inequality. This project explains how this literary device is congruent with a refashioning of multiculturalism in literary criticism; and analyzes how contingent configurations of identity are compatible with the rise of pluralism in emerging political, scientific, and cultural theory. Chair: Rolland Murray Committee: Professors Daniel Kim and Ralph Rodriguez Publications: “‘The slack string is just a slack string’: Neoformalist Networks in The White Boy Shuffle”. -
Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones Alice Walker, The Color Purple Ernest Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing N
June 2020 Dear 11th and 12th U.S. Literature Students, The following is your summer reading list. I have provided several fiction and nonfiction books as options. You are required to read two (2) books this summer, three (3) books if you plan to take Honors. You will have individual writing assignments based on your summer reading and follow up discussions in August/September. Honors students will present multimedia reflections on their chosen texts. All of these assignments will be part of your first semester grade for U.S. Literature. You can find these books on Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, Half Priced Books, Google Play Books, etc. (see used copies), or e-copies at your local libraries (until libraries reopen). They can also be found as audio books (Audible), so you may elect to listen to the story being read aloud as you follow along, if that helps you. Fiction Toni Morrison, Beloved Richard Wright, Native Son Jesmyn Ward, Salvage the Bones Alice Walker, The Color Purple Ernest Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing N. Scott Momaday, House Made of Dawn Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies Randy Ribay, Patron Saints of Nothing Mario Alberto Zambrano, Lotería Erika L. Sánchez, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X Nonfiction Joan Didion, Where I Was From Domingo Martinez, The Boy Kings of Texas Mohammed Ghassan Farjia, The Layman’s Guide to Climate Change Kwame Alexander, The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Score in this Game Called Life Janet Gurtler, You Too? Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City Robert Pirsig, Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Best wishes, Mr. -
Form As Theme in Richard Powers' the Overstory
“The tree is saying things in words be- fore words”: form as theme in Richard Powers’ The Overstory di Pia Masiero* Abstract: Richard Powers’ 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Overstory, is a very ambi- tious work which purports to raise the awareness on the life of trees proposing an eco- centered way of being revolving around the enlargement of the concepts of agency and crea- tivity. This article focuses on the formal ways in which Powers has strived to give voice to the-other-than human. Specifically, it presents the structuring of the plot according to the ex- tended metaphor of the tree and its rhetorical functioning according to the parabolic form. These macro principles are translated into two micro choices – the positing of a nonhuman narrator and the present as the dominant tense – that sustain and mirror the novel’s thematic concerns. The close readings of the existential trajectories of two female characters open up to a reflection on Powers’ gender politics. Richard Powers’ 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Overstory, contains the ingredients that according to the foundational book by Lawrence Buell, The Envi- ronmental Imagination, “comprise an environmentally oriented work” (7), namely, 1. The nonhuman environment is present not merely as a framing device but as a presence that begins to suggest that human history is implicated in natural history. 2. The human inter- est is not understood to be the only legitimate interest. 3. Human accountability to the envi- ronment is part of the texts’ ethical orientation.. 4. Some sense of the environment as a pro- cess rather than a constant or a given is at least implicit in the text. -
100 Best Last Lines from Novels
100 Best Last Lines from Novels 1. …you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. –Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable 22. YOU HAVE FALLEN INTO ARt—RETURN TO LIFE –William H. Gass, (1953; trans. Samuel Beckett) Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife (1968) 2. Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? –Ralph Ellison, 23. In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your Invisible Man (1952) rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel. –Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (1900) 3. So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. –F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) 24. Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is. –Russell Banks, Continental Drift (1985) 4. …I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the 25. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with children, only found another orphan. –Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851) my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could 26. The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off. -
What Happens When the Bird and the Fish Fall in Love?
Faculty of Arts and Philosophy 2006-2007 WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE BIRD AND THE FISH FALL IN LOVE? A thematic exploration of identity and racial issues in Richard Powers’ The Time of Our Singing Supervisor: Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the Prof. Dr. Kristiaan Versluys requirements for the degree of ‘Licentiaat in de Taal - en Letterkunde: Germaanse Talen’ by Tessa De Smet ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been written without the help and support of a few people. I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Professor Dr. Kristiaan Versluys, for his encouraging words, helpful comments and constructive feedback. Thanks also go to Romanie for introducing me to the work of Richard Powers, to Froya, Jordi and my parents for their support and unconditional trust (thanks Dad for proofreading!) and to all my friends in Bruges, Ghent and elsewhere for making spare time as carefree and enjoyable as possible! Thank you all! Tessa Ghent, May 2007 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 PART 1 : Theoretical Framework 4 CHAPTER 1: Race 5 What’s in a Name: The Many Meanings of Race 5 A Historical Framework: Past and Present Race Theories 8 A Future Beyond Race? America’s Hopeful Dream 12 CHAPTER 2: Identity (& Race) 16 2.1 Who is it that can tell me who I am? Identity m/Matters 16 2.2 The Persistent Effects of Colour Labelling: Racial Identity 22 2.3 Neither Black nor White yet Both: Crossing Racial Boundaries 28 PART 2 : Literary Analysis 35 CHAPTER 3: Characterisation: A Composition in Black & White 36 3.1 Interracial Literature: A Literary Tradition 37 3.2 The Portrait of a Family: Fish or Bird? 41 3.3 Racial Identity: The Theoretical Models applied 49 CHAPTER 4: Grand Novels have Grand Ideas: Race, Culture & History 55 4.1 Culture: Who Gets to Sing What? 55 4.2 History: Uncanting the can’t 60 4.3 Race: Older Than History and Build to Outlast It 67 CONCLUSION 74 REFRENCES 76 INTRODUCTION Richard Powers, sometimes characterised as ‘the greatest author you’ve never heard of’ (in Flanders §1), was born in Illinois, in June 1957. -
OLLI Spring 2020 the Novels of Richard Powers: an Overview
Regier – Syllabus for The Novels of Richard Powers: An Overview - 1 OLLI Spring 2020 The Novels of Richard Powers: An Overview Instructor: Willis Goth Regier E-mail address: [email protected] Course Description: Authors like to hear that their latest book is their best. When saying that about a Richard Powers novel we should always add “so far.” Every new novel makes some advance upon the others, and who is to say that one step is more important than another? Yet some novels seem to be strides rather than steps, and his latest, The Overstory (2018) is such a stride. This course will survey each of Powers’ twelve novels in chronological order, from Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (1985) to The Overstory. I will feature favorite passages in each novel, reflect their glories, and indicate what is distinctive about each. Powers’ readers will be reminded of novels they wish to reread. The course will also consider Powers’ novels as twelve parts of a whole which, properly put together, gives us a large look at Richard Powers. I will propose theses about the novels: They refuse to succumb to the predictabilities of a genre. They change themes, structures, and tones, though some themes recur and reassert their importance. The twelve take up complex issues and pose problems of individual responsibility. They have in common Powers’ resolution to make each unique and his determination in every case to “get it right.” Recommended: Richard Powers, The Overstory (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018). Regier – Syllabus for The Novels of Richard Powers: -
European Journal of American Studies, 2-1 | 2007 “Only the Conversation Matters” 2
European journal of American studies 2-1 | 2007 Spring 2007 “Only the Conversation Matters” An interview with Richard Powers Jean-Yves Pellegrin Édition électronique URL : https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/1145 DOI : 10.4000/ejas.1145 ISSN : 1991-9336 Éditeur European Association for American Studies Référence électronique Jean-Yves Pellegrin, « “Only the Conversation Matters” », European journal of American studies [En ligne], 2-1 | 2007, document 2, mis en ligne le 27 avril 2007, consulté le 08 juillet 2021. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/ejas/1145 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ejas.1145 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 8 juillet 2021. Creative Commons License “Only the Conversation Matters” 1 “Only the Conversation Matters” An interview with Richard Powers Jean-Yves Pellegrin NOTE DE L’ÉDITEUR This interview took place at the Sorbonne on the 20th of February 2006. Many thanks to Richard Powers for his exceptional kindness and patience. 1 From Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance (1985) to The Echo Maker (2006), American novelist Richard Powers explores the effects of modern science and technology on human lives. He teaches in the Creative Writing M.F.A. program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998, has been awarded a MacArthur Fellow (1989) and is the recipient of a Lannan Literary Award (1999). 2 Jean-Yves Pellegrin is Associate Professor of American literature at the University of Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV). He has translated two novels by Richard Powers. 3 J-Y. -
Addition to Summer Letter
May 2020 Dear Student, You are enrolled in Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition for the coming school year. Bowling Green High School has offered this course since 1983. I thought that I would tell you a little bit about the course and what will be expected of you. Please share this letter with your parents or guardians. A.P. Literature and Composition is a year-long class that is taught on a college freshman level. This means that we will read college level texts—often from college anthologies—and we will deal with other materials generally taught in college. You should be advised that some of these texts are sophisticated and contain mature themes and/or advanced levels of difficulty. In this class we will concentrate on refining reading, writing, and critical analysis skills, as well as personal reactions to literature. A.P. Literature is not a survey course or a history of literature course so instead of studying English and world literature chronologically, we will be studying a mix of classic and contemporary pieces of fiction from all eras and from diverse cultures. This gives us an opportunity to develop more than a superficial understanding of literary works and their ideas. Writing is at the heart of this A.P. course, so you will write often in journals, in both personal and researched essays, and in creative responses. You will need to revise your writing. I have found that even good students—like you—need to refine, mature, and improve their writing skills. You will have to work diligently at revising major essays.