Search results for ""Author Will Kaufman""
University of Illinois Press Woody Guthrie, American Radical
Woody Guthrie, American Radical reclaims the politically radical profile of America's greatest balladeer. Although he achieved a host of national honors and adorns U.S. postage stamps, and although his song "This Land Is Your Land" is often considered the nation's second national anthem, Woody Guthrie committed his life to the radical struggle. Will Kaufman traces Guthrie's political awakening and activism throughout the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the Korean War, the Civil Rights struggle, and the poison of McCarthyism. He examines Guthrie's role in the development of a workers' culture in the context of radical activism spearheaded by the Communist Party of the USA, the Popular Front, and the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Kaufman also establishes Guthrie's significance in the perpetuation of cultural front objectives into the era of the "New Left" and beyond, particularly through his influence on the American and international protest song movement. Utilizing a wealth of previously unseen archival materials such as letters, song lyrics, essays, personal reflections, photos, and other manuscripts, Woody Guthrie, American Radical introduces a heretofore unknown Woody Guthrie: the canny political strategist, fitful thinker, and cultural front activist practically buried in the general public's romantic celebration of the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." A portion of the royalties from the sales of this book will be donated to the Woody Guthrie Foundation.
£16.99
Cambridge University Press American Song and Struggle from Columbus to World War 2: A Cultural History
Long before anyone ever heard of 'protest music', people in America were singing about their struggles. They sang for justice and fairness, food and shelter, and equality and freedom; they sang to be acknowledged. Sometimes they also sang to oppress. This book uncovers the history of these people and their songs, from the moment Columbus made fateful landfall to the start of the Second World War, when 'protest music' emerged as an identifiable brand. Cutting across musical genres, Will Kaufman recovers the passionate voices of America itself. We encounter songs of the mainland and the conquered territories of Hawai'i, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines; we hear Indigenous songs, immigrant songs and Klan songs, minstrel songs and symphonies, songs of the heard and the unheard, songs of the celebrated and the anonymous, of the righteous and the despicable. This magisterial book shows that all these songs are woven into the very fabric of American history.
£29.99
Edinburgh University Press The Civil War in American Culture
The Civil War is an event of great cultural significance, impacting upon American literature, film, music, electronic media, the marketplace and public performance. This book takes an innovative approach to this great event in American history, exploring its cultural origins and enduring cultural legacy. It focuses upon the place of the Civil War across the broad sweep of American cultural forms and practices and reveals important links between historical events and contemporary culture. The first chapter introduces a discussion of ante-bellum culture and the part cultural forces played in the sectional crisis that exploded into full-blown war in 1861. Subsequent chapters focus on particular themes, appropriations, interpretations and manifestations of the War as they have appeared in American culture. Particular topics include: * Confederate revivalism * the cultural uses of martyrdom * the centrality of race * the War's destabilisation of gender norms * the War's place in virtual and transnational culture The final chapter explores the Civil War's alternative histories and the cultural meanings of the word 'Appomattox'. The reader is presented with an accessible, concise discussion of the Civil War in its many cultural contexts. Key Features: * multidisciplinary study of the cultural legacy of the Civil War: in literature, film, music, computer games, the internet, role play, material culture, and civic demonstration * situates race at the heart of the discussion and challenges the culture of denial in which race and slavery are marginalised in Civil War remembrance * written in a lively narrative voice, deliberately jargon-free * offers innovative readings of well-known and unexplored cultural material
£25.99
Wayne State University Press The Comedian as Confidence Man: Studies in Irony Fatigue
In this lively and fascinating analysis of humorists and their work, Will Kaufman breaks new ground with his irony fatigue theory. The Comedian as Confidence Man examines the humorist's internal conflict between the social critic who demands to be taken seriously and the comedian who never can be: the irony fatigue condition. Concentrating on eight American literary and performing comedians from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, this study explores the irony fatigue affect that seems to pervade the work of comedians-those particular social observers who are obliged to promise, ""Only kidding, folks,"" even when they may not be; in G. B. Shaw's words, they must ""put things in such a way as to make people who would otherwise hang them believe they are joking."" If these social observers are obliged to become, in effect, confidence men, with irony as the satiric weapon that both attacks and diverts, then the implications are great for those social critics who above all wish to be heeded.
£31.46
Edinburgh University Press American Culture in the 1970s
The 1970s was one of the most culturally vibrant periods in American history. This book discusses the dominant cultural forms of the 1970s - fiction and poetry; television and drama; film and visual culture; popular music and style; public space and spectacle - and the decade's most influential practitioners and texts: from Toni Morrison to All in the Family, from Diane Arbus to Bruce Springsteen, from M.A.S.H. to Taxi Driver and from disco divas to Vietnam protesters. In response to those who consider the seventies the time of disco, polyester and narcissism, this book rewrites the critical engagement with one of America's most misunderstood decades. Key Features *Focused case studies featuring key texts and influential writers, artists, directors and musicians *Chronology of 1970s American Culture *Bibliographies for each chapter and a general bibliography on 1970s Culture *14 black-and-white illustrations
£26.99
University Press of America Transatlantic Studies
Although our age has become host to a number of academic disciplines called area studies, including for example, African Studies and American Studies, these divisions do not capture the truly unique relationship of the lands joined by the Atlantic Ocean. Accordingly, a new area, called Transatlantic Studies, has emerged. This seminal work attempts to: define clearly the term Transatlantic Studies; locate Transatlantic studies academically; supply the field's critical perspective; discuss issues of globalization, migration, and the law. The collection is appropriately international and inter-disciplinary.
£102.36
