Description
Book SynopsisAuthors in this illuminating book probe the social and spiritual contexts from which select iconic figures emerge as innovators and cultural leaders and draw material into forms that subsequent generations consider pioneering and emblematic. The book identifies creators such as novelists, poets, performers and dramatists who are leaders in their respective genres, and in culture and society at large, and examines the influence exerted on and by their works.
Critics and admirers understand the cultural leaders discussed in this book as significant figures affecting social and political change. The chapters cover a range of genres, time periods and individuals, mixing literary and historical analysis with concerns relevant to leadership studies. The book includes a cross-disciplinary analysis focusing on its subjects' roles as leaders within and beyond their fields.
Scholars and students of religion, history and popular culture with wide-ranging interests in the humanities will find this book a unique and fascinating look at cultural leadership.
Contributors include: J.L. Airey, Y. Ariel, K.M.S. Bezio, W. Clark Gilpin, T. Fessenden, K. Lofton, E. Marienberg, C. McCracken-Flesher, S. Paulsell, C.N. Pondrom, J. Wiesenfarth
Table of ContentsContents: Preface Introduction. Cultural icons and cultural leadership Peter Iver Kaufman PART I. ORIGINS OF CULTURAL INFLUENCE 1. Marlowe’s violent reformation: religion, government and rebellion on the Elizabethan stage Kristin M.S. Bezio 2. Jane Austen bowls a googly: the juvenilia Joseph Wiesenfarth 3. Walter Scott: an unexpected icon Caroline McCracken-Flesher 4. Mary Shelley’s Mathilda: gender and the limits of authorial leadership Jennifer L. Airey 5. Emily Dickinson’s civil war: the poet as an agent of cultural change W. Clark Gilpin PART II. CULTURAL LEADERSHIP IN THE MODERN AGE 6. Family resemblances: religion around Virginia Woolf Stephanie Paulsell 7. Cultural leadership and T.S. Eliot: from cultural icon to cultural leader—or not? Cyrena N. Pondrom 8. Billie Holiday and the discipline of progress Tracy Fessenden 9. A different kind of cultural icon: Allen Ginsberg as a counterleader Yaakov Ariel 10. I don’t want to fake you out: Bob Dylan and the search for belief in history Kathryn Lofton 11. Death, resurrection, sacraments and myths: religion around Sting Evyatar Marienberg Index
