1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910822925503321

Autore

Moya Paula M. L.

Titolo

The social imperative : race, close reading, and contemporary literary criticism / / Paula M.L. Moya

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Stanford, California : , : Stanford University Press, , [2016]

©2016

ISBN

0-8047-9703-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (223 p.)

Classificazione

EC 2460

Disciplina

813.009/355

Soggetti

American fiction - History and criticism

American fiction - Social aspects

Race in literature

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

Introduction : schemas and racial literacy -- Racism is not intellectual : the dialogic potential of multicultural literature -- Not one and the same thing : the ethical relationship of selves to others in Toni Morrison's Sula -- Another way to be : vestigial schemas in Helena Maria Viramontes's "The moths" and Manuel Muñoz's "Zigzagger" -- Dismantling the master's house : the search for decolonial love in Junot Díaz's "How to date a browngirl, blackgirl, whitegirl, or halfie" -- The misprision of mercy : race and responsible reading in Toni Morrison's A mercy -- Conclusion : reading race.

Sommario/riassunto

In the context of the ongoing crisis in literary criticism, The Social Imperative reminds us that while literature will never by itself change the world, it remains a powerful tool and important actor in the ongoing struggle to imagine better ways to be human and free. Figuring the relationship between reader and text as a type of friendship, the book elaborates the social-psychological concept of schema to show that our multiple social contexts affect what we perceive and how we feel when we read. Championing and modeling a kind of close reading that attends to how literature reflects, promotes, and contests pervasive sociocultural ideas about race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, Paula M. L. Moya demonstrates the power of



works of literature by writers such as Junot Diaz, Toni Morrison, and Helena Maria Viramontes to alter perceptions and reshape cultural imaginaries. Insofar as literary fiction is a unique form of engagement with weighty social problems, it matters not only which specific works of literature we read and teach, but also how we read them, and with whom. This is what constitutes the social imperative of literature.