Difficult Reputations
Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial
1. Auflage
Erschienen am 31. Mai 2024
282 Seiten
978-0-226-23049-8 (ISBN)
Beschreibung
We take reputations for granted. Believing in the bad and the good natures of our notorious or illustrious forebears is part of our shared national heritage. Yet we are largely ignorant of how such reputations came to be, who was instrumental in creating them, and why. Even less have we considered how villains, just as much as heroes, have helped our society define its values.
Presenting essays on America's most reviled traitor, its worst president, and its most controversial literary ingénue (Benedict Arnold, Warren G. Harding, and Lolita), among others, sociologist Gary Alan Fine analyzes negative, contested, and subcultural reputations. Difficult Reputations offers eight compelling historical case studies as well as a theoretical introduction situating the complex roles in culture and history that negative reputations play.
Arguing the need for understanding real conditions that lead to proposed interpretations, as well as how reputations are given meaning over time, this book marks an important contribution to the sociologies of culture and knowledge.
Presenting essays on America's most reviled traitor, its worst president, and its most controversial literary ingénue (Benedict Arnold, Warren G. Harding, and Lolita), among others, sociologist Gary Alan Fine analyzes negative, contested, and subcultural reputations. Difficult Reputations offers eight compelling historical case studies as well as a theoretical introduction situating the complex roles in culture and history that negative reputations play.
Arguing the need for understanding real conditions that lead to proposed interpretations, as well as how reputations are given meaning over time, this book marks an important contribution to the sociologies of culture and knowledge.
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04/2001
University of Chicago Press
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02/2001
University of Chicago Press
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Person
Gary Fine is a professor of sociology at Northwestern University. His many books include
Manufacturing Tales: Sex and Money in Contemporary Legends and
With the Boys: Little League Baseball and Preadolescent Culture.
Inhalt
- Intro
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Constructing Difficult Reputations
- One: Benedict Arnold and the Commemoration of Treason
- Two: Warren Harding and the Memory of Incompetence
- Three: John Brown and the Legitimation of Political Violence
- Four: Fatty Arbuckle and the Creation of Public Attention
- Five: Henry Ford and the Multiple-Audience Problem
- Six: Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, and the Creation of Imaginary Social Relations
- Seven: Herman Melville and the Demise of Literary Reputation
- Eight: Sinclair Lewis, Main Street, and Community Reputation
- Conclusion: Difficult Reputations
- Index
