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American Literature Commons

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Full-Text Articles in American Literature

The Word According To Flannery O'Connor, Eamon Maher Jan 2023

The Word According To Flannery O'Connor, Eamon Maher

Articles

In her relatively short life (1925-1964), one that was greatly curtailed as a result of being diagnosed with lupus (a disease from which her father also died in 1952), Flannery O’Connor managed to leave behind a literary legacy that continues to fascinate scholars and general readers alike. This is all the more surprising when one considers that the work consists of just two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), along with 31 short stories.


William Carlos Williams’ “The Young Housewife”: A Postcritical Reading Vis‐À‐Vis Shel Silverstein's 'The Giving Tree', Sue Norton Jun 2022

William Carlos Williams’ “The Young Housewife”: A Postcritical Reading Vis‐À‐Vis Shel Silverstein's 'The Giving Tree', Sue Norton

Books/Book Chapters

Using the framework of Rita Felski in her 2015 book The Limits of Critique, this essay offers a postcritical analysis of William Carlos Williams’ 1915 poem “The Young Housewife.” Its intention is to show how Williams’ poem or any poem can be approached through a variety of critical lenses, but that these may get in the way of more immediate, rewarding ways of reading. Shel Silverstein's well-known 1964 short book The Giving Tree is similar at the level of “plot” to “The Young Housewife.” Taken in tandem, these two texts neatly exemplify the value of postcritical/non-resistant reading.


Incorporating One’S Own Literary Criticism Into The Curriculum: The Teachable Essay Via John Updike’S Short Stories, Sue Norton Feb 2022

Incorporating One’S Own Literary Criticism Into The Curriculum: The Teachable Essay Via John Updike’S Short Stories, Sue Norton

Books/Book Chapters

University students are approaching literary study at a time when social justice occupies centrality in public discourse, a time when racism, sexism, Eurocentrism, and Americentrism are commanding unprecedented levels of interest and analysis both inside the academy and out of it. If students in the literature classroom are encouraged to postpone ideologically driven readings, just initially, they will be better able to observe how fine literature achieves its artistry. They may then become more ardent, attentive readers who can interpret the world and the word with refined criticality.


Writing And Well-Being: Story As Salve In The Work Of (More Than) Two Updikes, Sue Norton May 2020

Writing And Well-Being: Story As Salve In The Work Of (More Than) Two Updikes, Sue Norton

Articles

No abstract provided.


Writing And Well Being: Story As Salve In The Work Of (More Than) Two Updikes, Sue Norton Jan 2020

Writing And Well Being: Story As Salve In The Work Of (More Than) Two Updikes, Sue Norton

Books/Book Chapters

Analysis of the work of David Updike and Linda Updike in relation to John Updike.


Two Roads Diverged: Iaas @ 50, Sue Norton Jan 2020

Two Roads Diverged: Iaas @ 50, Sue Norton

Articles

This article joins others in The Irish Journal of American Studies reflecting back on the history of the Irish Association of American Studies and the teaching of American literature and American Studies in Ireland.


‘Some Foods Are Considered Aphrodisiac Because They Resemble Sexual Organs’: On Isabel Allende’S Aphrodite, Anke Klitzing Feb 2019

‘Some Foods Are Considered Aphrodisiac Because They Resemble Sexual Organs’: On Isabel Allende’S Aphrodite, Anke Klitzing

Articles

At the age of 56, well into her second marriage and a grandmother herself, novelist Isabel Allende decided to find out whether aphrodisiacs are all they are made out to be. She wrote Aphrodite: The Love of Food and Food of Love after extensive research into erotic literature across some centuries and continents, and this foundation of age-old wisdom also means that the book, while published in 1998, remains a timeless source of inspiration and enjoyment.


Old World Readings Of A New World Novel: European Perspectives On John Updike's Terrorist, Laurence Mazzeno, Sue Norton May 2017

Old World Readings Of A New World Novel: European Perspectives On John Updike's Terrorist, Laurence Mazzeno, Sue Norton

Articles

Given the diverse and polarized reaction by reviewers and scholars in the decade immediately following its publication, John Updike’s 2006 novel, Terrorist, is likely to become a textbook case for reception studies. In reception studies, differences in space (in Updike’s case, globally) and time play an important role in shaping a reader’s reaction to a text.1 Within months of its publication, Terrorist generated hundreds of reviews in dozens of countries around the globe; scholarly articles began appearing less than a year later. Most notable is not simply the sheer number of publications devoted wholly or in part to this novel, …