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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Reviews
“Grounded in extraordinary archival research and informed by both theoretical sophistication and sensitivity to textual nuance, this pathbreaking and revelatory book will be required reading for historians and literary scholars alike. Luczak's decision to center her compelling study on Jack London, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and George Schuyler proves absolutely inspired as she not only challenges conventional wisdom regarding their work but also uses her trenchant analysis to mount a wide-ranging, energetic, boldly provocative, and unflinching engagement with the troublingly pervasive impact of eugenics thought in American culture.” (Richard Yarborough, Professor of English & African American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
"Luczak offers a broad cultural history of eugenic thinking while at the same time providing remarkably fresh and compelling interpretations of three important writers. Through her extensive acquaintance with the science, social theories, laws, and literature associated with eugenics, Luczak shows a masterly command of the arguments made on behalf of theories we may now dismiss as marginal or retrograde when in fact they once occupied a position of privilege and surprising authority in early twentieth-century American thought." - Eric J. Sundquist, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities, Johns Hopkins University, USA "A penetrating interpretation of the reach of eugenics in the early twentieth-century American literary imagination. Luczak's sharp analysis elucidates the pervasive and textured presence of themes and metaphors of breeding, degeneration, and perfection in the oeuvres of three prolific authors known for their poignant ruminations on gender, race, and westward expansion. This book complicates our understanding of eugenics as a literary and political force at the heart of American modernism." - Alexandra Stern, Professor of American Culture, University of Michigan, USAAbout the author
Ewa Barbara Luczak is Associate Professor of American Literature at the Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw, Poland. She is the author of How Their Living Outside America Affected Five African American Authors: Toward a Theory of Expatriate Literature.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Breeding and Eugenics in the American Literary Imagination
Book Subtitle: Heredity Rules in the Twentieth Century
Authors: Ewa Barbara Luczak
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Literature, Science and Medicine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137545794
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave Media & Culture Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2015
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-54578-7Published: 22 September 2015
eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-54579-4Published: 29 April 2016
Series ISSN: 2634-6435
Series E-ISSN: 2634-6443
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VIII, 275
Topics: Twentieth-Century Literature, Literary Theory, Cultural Theory, North American Literature, Fiction, Literary History