04084nam 2200673 450 991046777930332120200520144314.01-61376-469-3(CKB)4330000000525599(OCoLC)1007993449(MdBmJHUP)muse60413(MiAaPQ)EBC5599560(Au-PeEL)EBL5599560(CaPaEBR)ebr11637846(OCoLC)1076807926(EXLCZ)99433000000052559920161013h20162016 ub| 0engur|||||||nn|ntxtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierReading America citizenship, democracy, and Cold War literature /Kristin L. MatthewsAmherst :University of Massachusetts Press,[2016]©20161 online resource (pages cm)Print culture and the history of the book1-62534-234-9 Includes bibliographical references and index.Preface -- Introduction: "there is much to be gained by our reading" -- America reads: literacy and Cold War nationalism -- Reading for character, community, and country: J. D. Salinger's The catcher in the rye -- Reading to outmaneuver: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and African American -- Literacy in Cold War America -- Reading against the machine: Oedipa Maas and the quest for democracy in Thomas Pynchon's The crying of lot 49 -- Metafiction and radical democracy: getting at the heart of John Barth's Lost in the funhouse -- Confronting difference, confronting difficulty: culture wars, canon wars, and Maxine Hong Kingston's The woman warrior -- Conclusion: "reading makes a country great"."During the Cold War, the editor of Time magazine declared, "A good citizen is a good reader." As postwar euphoria faded, a wide variety of Americans turned to reading to understand their place in the changing world. Yet, what did it mean to be a good reader? And how did reading make you a good citizen? In Reading America, Kristin L. Matthews puts into conversation a range of political, educational, popular, and touchstone literary texts to demonstrate how Americans from across the political spectrum--including "great works" proponents, New Critics, civil rights leaders, postmodern theorists, neoconservatives, and multiculturalists--celebrated particular texts and advocated particular interpretive methods as they worked to make their vision of "America" a reality. She situates the fiction of J. D. Salinger, Ralph Ellison, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, and Maxine Hong Kingston within these debates, illustrating how Cold War literature was not just an object of but also a vested participant in postwar efforts to define good reading and citizenship" --Provided by publisher.Studies in print culture and the history of the book.Citizenship, democracy, and Cold War literatureAmerican literature20th centuryHistory and criticismBooks and readingSocial aspectsUnited StatesHistory20th centuryLiterature and societyUnited StatesHistory20th centuryCold War in literaturePolitics and literatureIdentity (Psychology) in literatureCitizenship in literatureDemocracy in literatureElectronic books.American literatureHistory and criticism.Books and readingSocial aspectsHistoryLiterature and societyHistoryCold War in literature.Politics and literature.Identity (Psychology) in literature.Citizenship in literature.Democracy in literature.810.9/0054Matthews Kristin L.1973-938251MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910467779303321Reading America2113724UNINA