You might also like

More about Bodies of Reform

• Book details
• Synopsis
• Trending among others

You get 97 loyalty points

Book synopsis

From the patricians of the early republic to post-Reconstruction racial scientists, from fin de siecle progressivist social reformers to post-war sociologists, character, that curiously formable yet equally formidable "stuff", has had a long and chequered history giving shape to the American national identity. Bodies of Reform re-conceives this pivotal category of nineteenth-century literature and culture by charting the development of the concept of "character" in the fictional genres, social reform movements, and political cultures of the United States from the mid-nineteenth to the early-twentieth century. By reading novelists such as Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Pauline Hopkins, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman alongside a diverse collection of texts concerned with the mission of building character, including child-rearing guides, muscle-building magazines, libel and naturalization law, Scout handbooks, and success manuals, James B. Salazar uncovers how the cultural practices of representing character operated in tandem with the character-building strategies of social reformers. His innovative reading of this archive offers a radical revision of this defining category in U.S. literature and culture, arguing that character was the keystone of a cultural politics of embodiment, a politics that played a critical role in determining-and contesting-the social mobility, political authority, and cultural meaning of the raced and gendered body.

Book details

Book category Books in English Literature & literary studies Literature: history & criticism Literary studies: general

• Full title: Bodies of Reform
• Author: James B Salazar
• Language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304
• EAN: 9780814741313
• ISBN: 0814741312
• ID: 04393653
• Publisher: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
• Weight: 432 g
• Dimensions: 227 × 151 × 19 mm
• Date of publishing: 15. September 2010

Trending among others

---

---

---