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American Literature Commons

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Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in American Literature

American Performance: Artistic Experience And The American Dream, Savannah M. Barrow Jan 2022

American Performance: Artistic Experience And The American Dream, Savannah M. Barrow

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The American Dream was first epitomized by Benjamin Franklin in his Autobiography (1791), in which he instructs his fellow citizens on how to procure the American promises of social mobility and economic prosperity. However, the moral and social performances reinforced by Franklin’s recipe-for-success promote an ideological system that prevents marginalized communities such as women, immigrants, and people of color, from procuring the Dream’s most foundational features. Inequitable access to the Dream is a theme revisited throughout American literature, wherein disenfranchised characters consume the aspirational narrative of American social mobility through art, media, and propaganda. This essay tracks the representation of …


“Report All Obscene Mail To Your Postmaster” Reading, Institutions, And The American Public, Post-Revolution And 1965, Connor Christopher Boehme Jan 2017

“Report All Obscene Mail To Your Postmaster” Reading, Institutions, And The American Public, Post-Revolution And 1965, Connor Christopher Boehme

Senior Projects Spring 2017

This project attempts to understand how Americans are able to imagine themselves as a political public in two revolutionary moments: just after the American Revolution, and in 1965, at the heart of the Civil Rights era. The public, which the Constitution labels “We, the people,” is explored first in Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, which postulates the institutional conditions necessary for its readership, the first generation of Americans, to form a political public. The project then studies the “We,” of the Constitution’s preamble and considers how readers can interpret who is signified by that “We.” 1965 saw a cultural revolution in America …


Benjamin Franklin's "The Art Of Virtue" As Diy, Michael Ditmore Dec 2013

Benjamin Franklin's "The Art Of Virtue" As Diy, Michael Ditmore

Michael Ditmore

No abstract provided.


Letter From Linda Grace Hoyer To John Updike, January 17, 1951, Linda Grace Hoyer Jan 1951

Letter From Linda Grace Hoyer To John Updike, January 17, 1951, Linda Grace Hoyer

Linda Grace Hoyer Family Correspondence

In this typed letter from Linda Grace Hoyer to her son, John Updike, Linda details her progress with the Juan Ponce de Leon novel. Linda asks John if he can conduct research on some of the historical aspects of the novel.