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New historical and cultural criticism
1. What is the relationship between Hawthorne’s depiction of Hester Prynne’s transgression, in thought and deed, of repressive Puritan values in The Scarlet Letter (1850) and such revolutionary nineteenth-century activities as the abolitionist movement and the women’s movement? In other words, how does the story of Hester Prynne (a colonial Puritan) embody and/ or criticize these nineteenth-century ideologies as they were circulated in pamphlets, popular stories, political activities, and other cultural texts? 2. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye (1970) was published at a time when con‑ servative American ideologies concerning race, class, gender, and social justice were being called into question in almost every domain of Ameri‑ can life. What does the history of this novel’s reception suggest about the circulation of conservative and liberal discourses addressing these pressing social issues since the time of the novel’s publication to the present? 3. How was John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) shaped by, and how did it shape, debates about the rights and responsibilities of workers circu‑ lating at the time the novel was published, for example, debates concern‑ ing the appropriate relationship among American business, government agencies, and the individual citizen? In other words, what kinds of cultural work did the novel perform at the time of its publication? 4. In what ways does Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899) interact with (repro‑ duce, comment on, question) debates about women’s rights and responsi‑ bilities circulating at the time the novel was written, for example, debates concerning women’s suffrage, economic independence, marriage, and motherhood? 5. What is the relationship between William Blake’s “The Little Black Boy” (1789) and discourses concerning Africa and Africans circulating in Eng‑ land during the second half of the eighteenth century? For further reading Bobo, Jacqueline, ed. Black Feminist Cultural Criticism. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2001. Brannigan, John. New Historicism and Cultural Materialism. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998. Cox, Jeffrey N., and Larry J. Reynolds, eds. New Historical Literary Study: Essays on Reproducing Texts, Representing History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. Fiske, John. “Popular Culture.” Critical Terms for Literary Study. 2nd ed. Ed. Frank Len‑ tricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 321–35. Foucault, Michel. The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon, 1984. Greenblatt, Stephen. “Culture.” Critical Terms for Literary Study. 2nd ed. Ed. Frank Len‑ tricchia and Thomas McLaughlin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 225–32.
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