A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and Culture

A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and Culture traces the creative energy that surged in new directions in the United States after World War II. Each of the contributors approaches a particular aspect of postwar literature, film, music, or drama from his or her own perspective. Yet taken together, their contributions demonstrate how different genres and approaches interacted and opened up new paths through this period.

The Concise Companion embraces the diversity which became characteristic of the postwar period. Vietnam literature, gay and lesbian literature, American Jewish fiction, Italian American literature, Irish American writing, emergent ethnic literatures, jazzmusic from bebop to hip hop, African American writing, and postwar film, among other subjects, reflect a time of turbulence, change, and cultural enrichment. What emerges from this survey is a portrait of postwar America split by differences of wealth and position, by ethnicity and race, by agendas of the left and right, but nevertheless united by the sheer intensity of its creative drive.

Notes on Contributors.

1. Introducing American Literature and Culture in the Postwar Years: Josephine G. Hendin.

2. The Fifties and After: An Ambiguous Culture: Frederick R. Karl.

3. The Beat Generation is Now About Everything : Regina Weinreich.

4. From Bebop to Hip Hop: American Music After 1950: Perry Meisel.

5. American Drama in the Postwar Period: John Bell.

6. Hollywood Dreaming: Postwar American Film: Leonard Quart, Albert Auster.

7. The Beauty and Destructiveness of War: A Literary Portrait of the Vietnam Conflict: Pat C. Hoy II.

8. Postmodern Fictions: David Mikics.

9. Gay and Lesbian Writing in Post World War II America : Mary Jo Bona.

10. Identity and the Postwar Temper in American Jewish Fiction: Daniel Fuchs.

11. Fire and Romance: African American Literature Since World War II: Sterling Lecater Bland, Jr.

12. Italian/American Literature and Culture: Fred L. Gardaphé.

13. Irish American Writing: Political Men and Archetypal Women: Robert E. Rhodes and Patricia Monaghan.

14. Emergent Ethnic Literatures: Native American, Hispanic, Asian American: Cyrus R. K. Patell.

15. I ll Be Your Mirror, Reflect What You Are Postmodern Documentation and the Downtown New York Scene from 1975 to the Present: Marvin J. Taylor.

Index

Josephine G. Hendin is Professor of English and Tiro A. Segno Professor of Italian American Studies at New York University. Her novel The Right Thing to Do won an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1988 9 and was reprinted by the Feminist Press in 1999. Her critical works include The World of Flannery O′Connor (1970), Vulnerable People: A View of American Fiction Since 1945 (1978), and Heartbreakers: Women and Violence in Contemporary Culture and Literature (2004).