The Uses of Variety: Modern Americanism and the Quest for National DistinctivenessHarvard University Press, 2000 - 380 من الصفحات The turn of the last century, amid the excesses of the Gilded Age, variety became a key notion for Americans—a sign of national progress and development, reassurance that the modern nation would not fall into monotonous dullness or disorderly chaos. Carrie Tirado Bramen pursues this idea through the works of a wide range of regional and cosmopolitan writers, journalists, theologians, and politicians who rewrote the narrative of American exceptionalism through a celebration of variety. Exploring cultural and institutional spheres ranging from intra-urban walking tours in popular magazines to the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago, she shows how the rhetoric of variety became naturalized and nationalized as quintessentially American and inherently democratic. By focusing on the uses of the term in the work of William James, Anna Julia Cooper, W. E. B. Du Bois, Hamlin Garland, and Wong Chin Foo, among many others, Bramen reveals how the perceived innocence and goodness of variety were used to construct contradictory and mutually exclusive visions of modern Americanism. |
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... in literature . 9. Ethnic relations in literature . 10. Minorities in literature . I. Title PS374.D45 B73 2000 813. 009'355 - dc21 00-056703 For David CONTENTS List of Illustrations Abbreviations Introduction : Americanizing.
... ethnic or racial back- ground , believe that the United States is far more diverse than it statisti- cally is . This belief also informs forecasts of the U.S. population into the twenty - first century . According to one oft - cited ...
... ethnic foods or professional musicians , for example , consists in the recognition that these transcend the familiar everyday world of my life " ( 319 ) . Diversity is valuable , according to this argument , because it gives pleasure to ...
... ethnic particularity and blending to include Horace Kallen's " orchestra , " but at this point let me suggest that , by the turn of the cen- tury , Crevecoeur's notion of " melting " was both expanded and con- tested . The debate now ...
... ethnic and racial diversity of the Filipinos precluded a communi- tarian spirit and prevented them from becoming future U.S. citizens : " No people can form a community or be wisely subjected to common forms of government who are as ...
المحتوى
William James and the Modern Federal Republic | 29 |
Identity Culture and Cosmopolitanism | 67 |
The Uneven Development of American Regionalism | 115 |
The Urban Picturesque and Americanization | 156 |
Biracial Fictions and the Mendelist Allegory | 201 |
East Meets West at the Worlds Parliament of Religions | 250 |
In Defense of Partiality | 293 |
Notes | 307 |
337 | |
Acknowledgments | 361 |
365 | |