The Theory and Practice of Reception Study: Reading Race and Gender in Twain, Faulkner, Ellison, and Morrison (Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature) - Softcover

Goldstein, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1032245026 ISBN 13: 9781032245027

Publisher: Routledge, 2022

Synopsis

This book examines novels of Faulkner and Morrison as well as Mark Twain and Ralph Ellison in order to show that their works forcefully undermine the racial and sexual divisions characterizing both the South and contemporary culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Moreover, the book discusses theories of reader-response and reception study and elaborates a theory of reception study based on the historical or "archeological" methods of Michel Foucault. As a consequence, unlike most studies of American literature, which discuss its historical contexts or prescribe its readers’ responses, this book explains the reception of these works, including the academic criticism and reviews and, because the internet exerts immense influence in the twenty-first century, the on-line responses of ordinary readers. Unlike most reception studies, this book examines the institutional contexts of the readers’ responses.

About this title

About the Author

Philip Goldstein earned a B.A. in English from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in English from Temple University and was promoted to full professor at the University of Delaware in 2001. With James Machor, he edited Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies (Routledge 2001).

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1032245026
• ISBN 13: 9781032245027
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 218