TABLE OF CONTENTS
U.S. Society & ValuesElectronic Journals of the U.S. Information Agency, Vol. 1, No. 10, August 1996
Electronic Journals of the U.S. Information Agency, Vol. 1, No. 10, August 1996
REGIONAL AMERICAN LITERATURE: GETTING TO KNOW US
This introductory article sets the scene for what follows. It discusses the impact of regional writing, the creative output in the different sectors of the United States and some leading authors who have brought these locales vividly to life.
By Michael J. Bandler
The identification with "place," for writers of both fiction and nonfiction, has diverse linkages. In this essay, the author, a noted essayist on nature, reflects upon how U.S. writers - and by extension readers - can form a relationship with "place."
By Barry Lopez
MARK TWAIN, AMERICA'S REGIONAL ORIGINAL
Mark Twain is the quintessential regionalist in American literature, having derived more aesthetic capital from the local perspective than any other U.S. writer. No fewer than four sectors of the country, in fact, claim him as one of their own. The author, a noted Twain scholar, assesses his 19th-century subject "whose capacity for meaningful expression is inherently bound to a specific sense of place."
By Henry B. Wonham
`COLORED PEOPLE' - REMINISCENCES OF HOME
The author, a prominent scholar, essayist, critic and social commentator, grew up in a small rural West Virginia community in the years before the advent of the civil rights movement that brought integration to the United States. In this excerpt from his 1994 memoir, Colored People, he recalls his home town, with all of its social, political and geographic implications.
By Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
FROM PLACE TO PLACE: WRITERS ON THE AMERICAN ROAD
In the second half of this century, the United States became a more mobile society. Writers, like other citizens, naturally have been part of this transition. This article, by a leading literary critic, speaks to this phenomenon and its relationship to "place."
By Sven Birkerts
More than ever before, mystery writing in the United States has become rooted in regional settings, outlooks and concerns. It follows, then, that readers are increasingly aware - through the works of Tony Hillerman, Carl Hiaasen, James Lee Burke and others - of much more than "whodunit."
By Michael J. Bandler
A sense of place in literature is best exemplified by the writings themselves, revealing figurative and literal sites within various contexts.
By Michael J. Bandler
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT... This roster of books, articles and Internet sites offers additional resource material on American literature in general and on specific writers and subjects in particular.
These abstracts of current articles on a range of subjects reflect American society and values.
U.S. Society & Values
USIA Electronic Journals
Volume 1, Number 10, August 1996
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Editor, U.S. Society & Values
Society and Values - I/TSV
Washington, D.C. 20547
United States of America
Publisher.............................Judith S. Siegel Editor................................William Peters Managing Editor.......................Michael J. Bandler Associate Editors.....................Wayne Hall ......................................Guy Olson Contributing Editors..................Charlotte Helene Astor ......................................Carmen G. Aponte ......................................Helen Sebsow ......................................J. Riley Sever ......................................Rosalie Targonski Graphic Designer/Art Director.........Thaddeus A. Miksinski, Jr. Graphics Assistant....................Sylvia Scott Internet Editor.......................Chandley McDonald Reference and Research................Mary Ann V. Gamble ......................................Kathy SpiegelEditorial Board
Howard Cincotta...Judith S. Siegel...Pamela H. Smith
U.S. Society and Values, USIA Electronic Journals, Vol. 1, No. 10, August 1996.
