A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War

Cambridge University Press, 2/4/2021
EAN 9781108475327, ISBN10: 1108475329

Hardcover, 466 pages, 23.5 x 15.9 x 3.2 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English

In the years of and around the First World War, American poets, fiction writers, and dramatists came to the forefront of the international movement we call Modernism. At the same time a vast amount of non- and anti-Modernist culture was produced, mostly supporting, but also critical of, the US war effort. A History of American Literature and Culture of the First World War explores this fraught cultural moment, teasing out the multiple and intricate relationships between an insurgent Modernism, a still-powerful traditional culture, and a variety of cultural and social forces that interacted with and influenced them. Including genre studies, focused analyses of important wartime movements and groups, and broad historical assessments of the significance of the war as prosecuted by the United States on the world stage, this book presents original essays defining the state of scholarship on the American culture of the First World War.

Introduction. America's Great War at one hundred (and counting) Tim Dayton and Mark W. Van Wienen
Part I. Genre and Medium
1. Poetry
hegemonic vistas Tim Dayton
2. Fiction
a war remembered Scott D. Emmert
3. Film
mostly classical Hollywood cinema goes to war and sometimes brings it home Leslie DeBauche
4. Drama
from literary fantasy to gritty realism Brenda Murphy
5. Popular music
tin pan alley as national barometer John Roger Paas
6. Journalism
adventure and reckoning Joe Hayden
7. Memoirs
negotiating the great war's social memory Ian Andrew Isherwood
8. Art and illustration
modes of visual persuasion David M. Lubin
Part II. Settings and Subjects
9. The peace movement
rapid development, women's leadership, regional diversity Kathleen Brown
10. Americans in France
women writers and international responsibility Jennifer Haytock
11. German Americans
dual loyalties and poetic adaptations of 'The watch on the Rhine' Lorie Vanchena
12. The English in America
cultural propaganda and its agents Alisa Miller
13. Preparedness
Theodore Roosevelt, Leonard Wood, and rookie rhymes Adam Szetela
14. Propaganda
martialing media Pearl James
15. Conscientious objectors
conscience, courage, and resistance Scott H. Bennett
16. Volunteers
ambulance and nursing narratives Hazel Hutchison
17. African Americans
defining freedom, citizenship, and patriotism Françoise N. Hamlin
18. In the Midwest
'Borne back ceaselessly into the past' David Rennie
19. In the south
three Mississippi writers and the Great War mobilization David A. Davis
20. Revolution
winning the world, losing the (middle) way Mark W. Van Wienen
21. Monuments and memorials
memory dissipated Mark Levitch
Part III. Transformations
22. The nation
forging one, finding many Jonathan Vincent
23. Free speech
'clear and present danger' Ernest Freeberg
24. Labour
from replaceable cogs to corporate citizens Thomas Mackaman
25. The veteran
parades, bitter homecomings, and fictions of the doughboy's return Steven Trout
26. The military-industrial complex
practices, precedents, and literary engagements Mark Whalan
27. The world
race, red-baiting, and the Wilsonian century Alexander Anievas.