
E.L. Doctorow
A Reconsideration
Edinburgh University Press
Published on 31. August 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-4744-5884-9 (ISBN)
Description
Showcases the life-work of one of America's greatest contemporary novelists
Essays written by an international set of scholarsContributions by prominent fiction writers and friends of Doctorow: Don DeLillo, Victor Navasky, and Jennifer Egan Pays particular attention to the extraordinary novels of Doctorow in the last 20 years, including The Waterworks, City of God, and a set of his recent preoccupations: corporate and religious power, cognitive science, and media cultureThis book gathers a suite of newly commissioned, original essays on the work of E. L. Doctorow. It reframes our understanding of his oeuvre by engaging it in entirety, including the significant accomplishments of the late period. The book features chapters by prominent fiction writers and friends of Doctorow, such as Don DeLillo, Victor Navasky and Jennifer Egan and explores Doctorow's novels and his diverse preoccupations: corporate and religious power, cognitive science and media culture.
Essays written by an international set of scholarsContributions by prominent fiction writers and friends of Doctorow: Don DeLillo, Victor Navasky, and Jennifer Egan Pays particular attention to the extraordinary novels of Doctorow in the last 20 years, including The Waterworks, City of God, and a set of his recent preoccupations: corporate and religious power, cognitive science, and media cultureThis book gathers a suite of newly commissioned, original essays on the work of E. L. Doctorow. It reframes our understanding of his oeuvre by engaging it in entirety, including the significant accomplishments of the late period. The book features chapters by prominent fiction writers and friends of Doctorow, such as Don DeLillo, Victor Navasky and Jennifer Egan and explores Doctorow's novels and his diverse preoccupations: corporate and religious power, cognitive science and media culture.
Reviews / Votes
E. L. Doctorow once likened narrative art to the experience of driving an unlit road at night. The author apprehends the close-distance illumination of the headlamps; everything else, he suggested, would only visualise upon encounter with mechanical luminescence, as if conjured into being by the very act of forward propulsion. This collection fits out the narrative motorway of Doctorow's literary career with vivid overhead lighting. These essays are both transformative and illuminating, and together will serve as a definitive guide to the long journey of Doctorow's narrative worlds. * Mark Steven, University of Exeter *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 154 mm
Width: 233 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
392 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-5884-9 (9781474458849)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Michael Wutz is Rodney H Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor at Weber State University. His publications include: Conversations with W. S. Merwin, coedited with Hal Crimmel (Weber State University), Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2015; reissued in paperback 2018.Enduring Words-Literary Narrative in Changing Media Ecology, Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2009, pp. 279 "Young Swiss Writers," a special double issue of the international, bilingual magazine Dimension2 co-edited and -introduced with Romey Sabalius (Cal State, San Jose), vol. 8 (2/3), pp. 177-455, February 2007. "Media, Materiality, Memory: Aspects of Intermediality," a special issue of Configurations, the journal of the Society for Literature & Science, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, vol. 10, no.1 (Winter 2002): pp. 201, coedited with Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, Univ. of British Columbia. Julian Murphet is Jury Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Adelaide. He is the author, previously, of Literature and Race in Los Angeles (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Multimedia Modernism (Cambridge University Press, 2009), Faulkner's Media Romance (Oxford University Press, 2017) and Todd Solondz (Northern Illinois University Press, 2019), and of the forthcoming Modern Character: 1888-1905 (Oxford University Press, 2023) and Twentieth-Century Prison Writing: A Literary Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).
Editor
Rodney H Brady Presidential Distinguished ProfessorWeber State University
Jury Professor of English Language and LiteratureUniversity of Adelaide
Content
AcknowledgementsNotes on Contributors
Introduction: E. L. Doctorow Reconsidered, Michael Wutz and Julian Murphet
I Generic Border Crossings 1. Doctorow and the Halbbildungsroman, Tamlyn Avery 2. "The Dark Horrors of Consciousness": Doctorow and the Gothic, Stephen Arch 3. E. L. Doctorow as Short Story Writer, Mark Azzopardi
II Politics, Allegory, Difference4. Submerged Politics and the Artist, Nicholas Murgatroyd5. Redeeming the National Ideal: Revisiting E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel and Its Political Implications, Jieun Kwon6. "A Rearrangement of Molecules": On Doctorow's Perpetual Motion Machines, Julian Murphet7. Cocks, Corsets, Clocks: E. L. Doctorow and the Tunnel of Love, Alexander Howard
III Narrative, Media, and Cognition-The Case of City of God8. Literary Neutrinos and the Hot Dark Matters of Doctorow's City of God, Nathan Frank9. City of God / City of Bits: Signs, Signals, Noise, Michael Wutz
IV Tributes 10. E. L. Doctorow, Inhabiting History, Jennifer Egan11. The Polyphonic Past, Don DeLillo12. A Half Century of Friendship and Literary Greatness, Victor Navasky
Index
Introduction: E. L. Doctorow Reconsidered, Michael Wutz and Julian Murphet
I Generic Border Crossings 1. Doctorow and the Halbbildungsroman, Tamlyn Avery 2. "The Dark Horrors of Consciousness": Doctorow and the Gothic, Stephen Arch 3. E. L. Doctorow as Short Story Writer, Mark Azzopardi
II Politics, Allegory, Difference4. Submerged Politics and the Artist, Nicholas Murgatroyd5. Redeeming the National Ideal: Revisiting E. L. Doctorow's The Book of Daniel and Its Political Implications, Jieun Kwon6. "A Rearrangement of Molecules": On Doctorow's Perpetual Motion Machines, Julian Murphet7. Cocks, Corsets, Clocks: E. L. Doctorow and the Tunnel of Love, Alexander Howard
III Narrative, Media, and Cognition-The Case of City of God8. Literary Neutrinos and the Hot Dark Matters of Doctorow's City of God, Nathan Frank9. City of God / City of Bits: Signs, Signals, Noise, Michael Wutz
IV Tributes 10. E. L. Doctorow, Inhabiting History, Jennifer Egan11. The Polyphonic Past, Don DeLillo12. A Half Century of Friendship and Literary Greatness, Victor Navasky
Index