Bodies of reform [[electronic resource] ] : the rhetoric of character in Gilded Age America / / James B. Salazar

• Record Nr.: UNINA9910791425403321
• Autore: Salazar James B
• Pubbl/distr/stampa: New York, : New York University Press, c2010
• ISBN: 0-8147-8653-7; 0-8147-4132-0
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (312 p.)
• Collana: America and the long 19th century
• Disciplina: 823/.809353
• Soggetti: American fiction - 19th century - History and criticism; Character in literature; Characters and characteristics in literature; National characteristics, American, in literature; Character - Political aspects - United States - History - 19th century; Rhetoric - Political aspects - United States - History - 19th century; Political culture - United States - History - 19th century; Politics and literature - United States - History - 19th century
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Philanthropic Taste -- 2. Character Is Capital -- 3. Muscle Memory -- 4. “A Story Written on Her Face” -- 5. Character’s Conduct -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author
• Sommario/riassunto: From the patricians of the early republic to post-Reconstruction racial scientists, from fin de siècle progressivist social reformers to post-war sociologists, character, that curiously formable yet equally formidable “stuff,” has had a long and checkered history giving shape to the American national identity.Bodies of Reform reconceives 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.