LEADER 05579nam 2200841 a 450 001 9910959257203321 005 20240418054014.0 010 $a9780299155339 010 $a0299155331 035 $a(CKB)2560000000051057 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000420048 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11288549 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000420048 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10392717 035 $a(PQKB)10477084 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3445121 035 $a(OCoLC)669505168 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse12083 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3445121 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10420233 035 $a(OCoLC)927483697 035 $a(Perlego)4386162 035 $a(EXLCZ)992560000000051057 100 $a19970428d1997 ub 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aHuckleberry Finn as idol and target $ethe functions of criticism in our time /$fJonathan Arac 205 $a1st ed. 210 $aMadison $cUniversity of Wisconsin Press$dc1997 215 $aix, 254 p 225 1 $aThe Wisconsin project on American writers 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 08$a9780299155346 311 08$a029915534X 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 225-239) and index. 327 $aIntro -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Huckleberry Finn as Idol and Target -- 2. All Right, Then, I'll Go to Hell: Historical Contexts for Chapter 31 -- 3. Forty Years of Controversy, 1957-1996 -- 4. Uncle Tom's Cabin vs. Huckleberry Finn: The Historians and the Critics -- 5. Lionel Trilling: The Key Text in Context -- 6. Nationalism and Hypercanonization -- 7. Vernacular and Nationality: Comparative Contexts for Chapter 19 -- 8. Nation, Race, and Beyond -- Coda: The Memories of Huckleberry Finn -- Acknowledgments -- Works Cited -- Index. 330 8 $aIf racially offensive epithets are banned on CNN air time and in the pages of USA Today, Jonathan Arac asks, shouldn't a fair hearing be given to those who protest their use in an eighth-grade classroom? Placing Mark Twain's comic masterpiece, Huckleberry Finn, in the context of long-standing American debates about race and culture, Jonathan Arac has written a work of scholarship in the service of citizenship. Huckleberry Finn, Arac points out, is America's most beloved book, assigned in schools more than any other work because it is considered both the "quintessential American novel" and "an important weapon against racism." But when some parents, students, and teachers have condemned the book's repeated use of the word "nigger, " their protests have been vehemently and often snidely countered by cultural authorities, whether in the universities or in the New York Times and the Washington Post. The paradoxical result, Arac contends, is to reinforce racist structures in our society and to make a sacred text of an important book that deserves thoughtful reading and criticism. Arac does not want to ban Huckleberry Finn, but to provide a context for fairer, fuller, and better-informed debates. Arac shows how, as the Cold War began and the Civil Rights movement took hold, the American critics Lionel Trilling, Henry Nash Smith, and Leo Marx transformed the public image of Twain's novel from a popular "boy's book" to a central document of American culture. Huck's feelings of brotherhood with the slave Jim, it was implied, represented all that was right and good in American culture and democracy. Drawing on writings by novelists, literary scholars, journalists, and historians, Arac revisits the era of the novel's setting in the 1840s, the period in the 1880s when Twain wrote and published the book, and the post-World War II era, to refute many deeply entrenched assumptions about Huckleberry Finn and its place in cultural history, both nationally and globally. Encompassing discussion of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Ellison, Archie Bunker, James Baldwin, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, and Mark Fuhrman, Arac's book is trenchant, lucid, and timely. 410 0$aWisconsin project on American writers. 606 $aJunior high school students$xBooks and reading$zUnited States 606 $aNational characteristics, American, in literature 606 $aAmerican fiction$xStudy and teaching (Secondary) 606 $aLiterature and society$zUnited States$xHistory 606 $aFinn, Huckleberry (Fictitious character) 606 $aAfrican Americans in literature 606 $aFugitive slaves in literature 606 $aRace relations in literature 606 $aRacism in literature 606 $aBoys in literature 606 $aCanon (Literature) 607 $aMississippi River$xIn literature 615 0$aJunior high school students$xBooks and reading 615 0$aNational characteristics, American, in literature. 615 0$aAmerican fiction$xStudy and teaching (Secondary) 615 0$aLiterature and society$xHistory. 615 0$aFinn, Huckleberry (Fictitious character) 615 0$aAfrican Americans in literature. 615 0$aFugitive slaves in literature. 615 0$aRace relations in literature. 615 0$aRacism in literature. 615 0$aBoys in literature. 615 0$aCanon (Literature) 676 $a813/.4 700 $aArac$b Jonathan$f1945-$0457742 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910959257203321 996 $aHuckleberry Finn as idol and target$94363436 997 $aUNINA