American Dreams Suburban Nightmares Suburbia As A Narrative Space Between Utopia And Dystopia In Contemporary American Cinema
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American Dreams Suburban Nightmares Suburbia As A Narrative Space Between Utopia And Dystopia In Contemporary American Cinema
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Author : Melanie Smicek
language : en
Publisher: Anchor Academic Publishing (aap_verlag)
Release Date : 2014-10
American Dreams Suburban Nightmares Suburbia As A Narrative Space Between Utopia And Dystopia In Contemporary American Cinema written by Melanie Smicek and has been published by Anchor Academic Publishing (aap_verlag) this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014-10 with Language Arts & Disciplines categories.
The suburban landscape is inseparable from American culture. Suburbia does not only relate to the geographical concept, but also describes a cultural space incorporating people’s hopes for a safe and prosperous life. Suburbia marks a dynamic ideological space constantly influenced and recreated by both the events of everyday life and artistic discourse. Fictional texts do not merely represent suburbia, but also have a decisive role in the shaping of suburban spaces. The widely held idealized image of suburbia evolved in the 1950s. Today, reality deviates from the concept of suburbs projected back then, due to e.g. high divorce rates and an increase of crime. Nevertheless, the nostalgic view of the suburbs as the “Promised Land" has survived. Postwar critics object to this perception, considering the suburbs rather as depressing landscapes of mass-consumption, conformity and alienation. This book exemplifies the dualistic representation of suburbs in contemporary American cinema by analyzing Pleasantville, The Truman Show and American Beauty. It examines how utopian concepts of suburbia are created culturally and psychologically in the films, and how the underlying anxieties of the suburban experience, visualized by the dystopian narratives, challenge this ideal.
Suburbia As A Narrative Space Between Utopia And Dystopia In Contemporary American Cinema
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Author : Melanie Smicek
language : de
Publisher:
Release Date : 2014-06-25
Suburbia As A Narrative Space Between Utopia And Dystopia In Contemporary American Cinema written by Melanie Smicek and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014-06-25 with categories.
Examination Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 1,0, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: [Suburbia] has become the quintessential physical achievement of the United States; it is perhaps more representative of its culture than big cars, tall buildings, or professional football. Suburbia symbolizes the fullest, most unadulterated embodiment of contemporary culture. As Kenneth Jackson notes in his price-winning chronicle Crabgrass Frontier, the suburban landscape has become inseparable from American culture within the last two centuries. Nowadays living in the suburbs is the norm for most Americans, as since the 1990s, more than two third of the population lives in suburban districts. The term suburbia does not only relate to the geographical concept that differentiates these dwellings from urban or rural areas, but also describes a cultural, ideological space incorporating Americans' hopes for an economically safe and prosperous family life. Closely tied to the history and culture of the USA, suburbia marks a dynamic ideological space that is constantly influenced and recreated by both the events of everyday life and artistic discourse. Thus, the depiction of suburban life functions as a central narrative element in numerous works of American literature, art and film. In this context, fictional texts do not merely represent suburbia, but also have a decisive role in the shaping of suburban spaces. The treatment of suburbia as a cultural space in American movies is of special interest, as their commercial success and popularity make films important cultural texts. As Spigel notes, "television and new media redirect our experience of private and public spheres" and therefore highly influence our perceptions of the spaces we inhabit. Regarding suburban landscapes, this aspect is particularly interesting because the inexorable rise of the television practically coincided with the postwar suburb
Narrative Humanism
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Author : Moss-Wellington Wyatt Moss-Wellington
language : en
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Release Date : 2019-09-13
Narrative Humanism written by Moss-Wellington Wyatt Moss-Wellington and has been published by Edinburgh University Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-09-13 with Fiction categories.
This book attempts to clarify the narrative conditions of humanism, asking how we can use stories to complicate our understanding of others, and questioning the ethics and efficacy of attempts to represent human social complexity in fiction. With case studies of films like Parenthood (1989), American Beauty (1999), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and The Kids Are All Right (2010), this original study synthesises leading discourses on media and cognition, evolutionary anthropology, literature and film analysis into a new theory of the storytelling instinct.
Look Closer
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Author : David R. Coon
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2013
Look Closer written by David R. Coon and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2013 with Electronic books categories.
Look Closer examines contemporary media texts that use American suburbia not just as a setting, but as a central component of narrative and thematic development. It discusses the myth of suburban perfection popularized by postwar sitcoms and advertisements and explores how the directors and producers behind today's films and television series use the spaces of suburbia to tell stories about America as well as critique the conservative ideologies that underpin the suburban American Dream.
Us American Expressions Of Utopian And Dystopian Visions
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Author : Saskia Fürst
language : en
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Release Date : 2017
Us American Expressions Of Utopian And Dystopian Visions written by Saskia Fürst and has been published by LIT Verlag Münster this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017 with Literary Criticism categories.
This collection takes stock of current discourses in American studies on the political valence of American utopias, be they as religious diasporas or as socialist experiments, fantastic or realist, successful or failed. The included essays take into account the spatiality of utopias (especially in their visionary scope), analyze currents in literary utopias, and look at dystopian visions in literature. This volume strives to keep alive the long tradition of writers, artists, and scholars who warned against imminent disasters and envisioned ways to counter such ruinous bearings. (Series: American Studies in Austria, Vol. 17) [Subject: Sociology, Literary Studies]
Scenes From The Suburbs
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Author :
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2014
Scenes From The Suburbs written by and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014 with Suburban life categories.
This is a study of the representation of suburban space in US film and television. Suburbia. Say the word and a stream of images pass before your eyes: white picket fence, neatly mowed lawns, winding roads nicely lined with trees, pastel tinted bungalows, bored housewives, conspicuous consumption. We all know what the suburbs are about. Or do we? This book looks again at the filmic and televised spaces we think we know so well. How are these spaces built up? What is it that makes us recognize them as suburbs? How do they function?
Scenes From The Suburbs
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Author : Timotheus Vermeulen
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2014
Scenes From The Suburbs written by Timotheus Vermeulen and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2014 with Art categories.
This book looks again at the filmic and televised spaces we think we know so well. How are these spaces built up? What is it that makes us recognize them as suburbs? How do they function? Vermeulen uses Desperate Housewives, The Simpsons, King of the Hill, Happiness, Pleasantville, Brick and Chumscrubber to explore these questions.
American Dream American Nightmare
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Author : Kathryn Hume
language : en
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Release Date : 2022-08-15
American Dream American Nightmare written by Kathryn Hume and has been published by University of Illinois Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022-08-15 with Literary Criticism categories.
In this celebration of contemporary American fiction, Kathryn Hume explores how estrangement from America has shaped the fiction of a literary generation, which she calls the Generation of the Lost Dream. In breaking down the divisions among standard categories of race, religion, ethnicity, and gender, Hume identifies shared core concerns, values, and techniques among seemingly disparate and unconnected writers including T. Coraghessan Boyle, Ralph Ellison, Russell Banks, Gloria Naylor, Tim O'Brien, Maxine Hong Kingston, Walker Percy, N. Scott Momaday, John Updike, Toni Morrison, William Kennedy, Julia Alvarez, Thomas Pynchon, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Don DeLillo. Hume explores fictional treatments of the slippage in the immigrant experience between America's promise and its reality. She exposes the political link between contemporary stories of lost innocence and liberalism's inadequacies. She also invites us to look at the literary challenge to scientific materialism in various searches for a spiritual dimension in life. The expansive future promised by the American Dream has been replaced, Hume finds, by a sense of tarnished morality and a melancholy loss of faith in America's exceptionalism. American Dream, American Nightmare examines the differing critiques of America embedded in nearly a hundred novels and points to the source for recovery that appeals to many of the authors.
American Nightmares
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Author : Valentina Romanzi
language : en
Publisher: Ralahine Utopian Studies
Release Date : 2022
American Nightmares written by Valentina Romanzi and has been published by Ralahine Utopian Studies this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022 with American fiction categories.
This volume investigates dystopia in twenty-first-century US fiction. Using a methodological framework based on sociology, it theorizes a correlation between the crisis of the Frontier myth and of American exceptionalism and a renewed interest in dystopian worlds. Part One illustrates the methodological framework, exploring the concept of dystopia, offering an overview of the American myths and of their current status and spotlighting some relevant sociological theories. Part Two applies the proposed methodological framework to four texts, investigating the sub-genres of political, technological and environmental dystopia. The primary works, chosen to show both the relevance of the abovementioned American myths to dystopian narratives and the pervasiveness of the genre across the media, are Margaret Atwood's The Testaments (2019), Dave Eggers's The Circle (2013), David Cage's video game Detroit: Become Human (2018), and the Hughes Brothers' 2010 movie The Book of Eli.
Utopia Unlimited
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Author : Angela Warfield
language : en
Publisher:
Release Date : 2017-02-26
Utopia Unlimited written by Angela Warfield and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-02-26 with categories.
Utopia Unlimited, completed at the dawn of President Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency, hearkens back to the rhetoric of hope, promise, and idealism that unified and inspired millions of Americans to dream again. This edition arrives at the dawn of a new era--the Trump presidency. The theories, readings, and critique in this study are more prescient than ever. Every candidate promises a "brave new world" and inspires legions of voters to follow their lead. Sometimes these worlds are built on courage, innovation, and hope; sometimes their foundations are fear, cowardice, and complacency. Some candidates deliver on promises more than others. Of course, the Trump administration is in its infancy and the impact of his presidency remains to be seen. If history has any lessons to teach us, the waxing and waning of promises, dreams, lies, and nightmares is the rhythm of American politics and life. Utopian and dystopian authors have long charted this territory and Utopian Unlimited argues that American literary utopias of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) and William Dean Howells' Altrurian Romances (1907) to Aldous Huxley's Island and Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed (1974), offer a unique narrative site to approach the ethical and political concerns of postmodernity. Literary utopias are conventionally read as either dogmatic and totalitarian schemes or impractical and fanciful dreams; they are interpreted as representations of an archetypal ideology. I contend that these conventional interpretations overlay and belie an essentially post-ideological irony and ambivalence inherent in the neologism "utopia"--the "good place" (eu-topos) that is simultaneously "no place" (ou-topos). Utopian narratives remain unfinished projects whose political and ethical potential resides in the suspension of utopia's realization, a notion discussed in Jacques Derrida's exploration of the irony and ultimate ethical significance of an idea that cannot be fully presented or realized (diff�rance), a space that cannot be traversed (a-poria), and of a community-to-come engendered by these notions. Accordingly, these readings of American literary utopias disclose narrative characteristics, from temporal instability to radical shifts in points of view, to show that the value of utopian literature lies in its exploration of alternative possibilities without prescribing finite and present solutions. Utopia Unlimited will offer readers hope in the face of an uncertain future.Utopia Unlimited is a reexamination of the utopian tradition in American Literature from the 19th century to the present that posits a new theory of utopianism based on the intent of the titular work by Sir Thomas More. The works of famous utopian writers from Edward Bellamy to Aldous Huxley are explored in detail and the utopian criticism sheds light on where America, and humanity, may be headed in the 21st century. If you are interested in American Literature, Utopia, Dystopia, Politics, Philosophy, or Ethics, you will appreciate this examination of the utopian tradition and the promise utopian philosophy holds for the millennium.