The Making of Middlebrow CultureUniv of North Carolina Press, 09.11.2000 - 438 Seiten The proliferation of book clubs, reading groups, "outline" volumes, and new forms of book reviewing in the first half of the twentieth century influenced the tastes and pastimes of millions of Americans. Joan Rubin here provides the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, the rise of American middlebrow culture, and the values encompassed by it. Rubin centers her discussion on five important expressions of the middlebrow: the founding of the Book-of-the-Month Club; the beginnings of "great books" programs; the creation of the New York Herald Tribune's book-review section; the popularity of such works as Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy; and the emergence of literary radio programs. She also investigates the lives and expectations of the individuals who shaped these middlebrow institutions--such figures as Stuart Pratt Sherman, Irita Van Doren, Henry Seidel Canby, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, John Erskine, William Lyon Phelps, Alexander Woollcott, and Clifton Fadiman. Moreover, as she pursues the significance of these cultural intermediaries who connected elites and the masses by interpreting ideas to the public, Rubin forces a reconsideration of the boundary between high culture and popular sensibility. |
Im Buch
Ergebnisse 1-5 von 88
Seite xii
... readers through the increasingly bewildering task of book selection . In addi- tion , publishers , responding to the demand for culture in organized , manageable parcels , nurtured authors like Durant who could " outline " and simplify ...
... readers through the increasingly bewildering task of book selection . In addi- tion , publishers , responding to the demand for culture in organized , manageable parcels , nurtured authors like Durant who could " outline " and simplify ...
Seite xvi
... Reader's Digest . For some of the same reasons , but , in addition , because the data on audience response were largely ... readers . Recognizing the desirability of incorporating the latter dimension , how- ever , I have used whatever ...
... Reader's Digest . For some of the same reasons , but , in addition , because the data on audience response were largely ... readers . Recognizing the desirability of incorporating the latter dimension , how- ever , I have used whatever ...
Seite xix
... readers " ( as the Book - of - the - Month Club termed them ) . To anyone dedicated , as I am , to democratic values , the promise that middlebrow ventures would put more books in the hands of more people is a highly attractive one ...
... readers " ( as the Book - of - the - Month Club termed them ) . To anyone dedicated , as I am , to democratic values , the promise that middlebrow ventures would put more books in the hands of more people is a highly attractive one ...
Seite xx
... readers deserved the insights of uncompromising but engaged authorities in order to share in literature's " chief gift " -the " extension of our sense of living by compelling us to contemplate a broader world " —has been my own starting ...
... readers deserved the insights of uncompromising but engaged authorities in order to share in literature's " chief gift " -the " extension of our sense of living by compelling us to contemplate a broader world " —has been my own starting ...
Seite 10
... readers owed alle- giance to the judgments of a “ literary moral elite . " The distinguishing feature of the " American Scholar , " as depicted by Emerson in 1837 , was self - trust , not reverence for " accepted dogmas . " At the ...
... readers owed alle- giance to the judgments of a “ literary moral elite . " The distinguishing feature of the " American Scholar , " as depicted by Emerson in 1837 , was self - trust , not reverence for " accepted dogmas . " At the ...
Inhalt
1 | |
Stuart Pratt Sherman Irita Van Doren and Books | 34 |
The Early History of the BookoftheMonth Club | 93 |
John Erskine and Great Books | 148 |
illustrations | 199 |
Will Durant and the Vogue of the Outline | 209 |
Book Programs on Commercial Radio | 266 |
Notes | 331 |
Bibliography | 373 |
Index | 405 |
Permissions | 415 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Adler advertising aesthetic Alexander Woollcott American appeared Arnold Arnoldian audience authority Autobiography Babbitt Book Review Book-of-the-Month Club broadcast Broun Canby Canby's Canfield character civilization classics Clifton Fadiman club's COHC College critics democratic Dewey Dorothy Canfield Fisher Durant's early editor effort Eliot Emerson Erskine Papers Erskine's essay example experience Fadiman Fisher Folder genteel tradition Haldeman-Julius Helen Helen Rogers Reid Henry Seidel Canby Herald Tribune human Ibid idea ideal intellectual Irita Van Doren James John Erskine Lazarsfeld lecture Letters Library Lincoln Schuster listeners literary Loon Loon's Mark Van Doren Max Lincoln ment middlebrow modern moral Morley NBC Records Norton novel outline personality Phelps Phelps's political popular publishers quiz Radio readers reading Review of Literature role Saturday Review selection sense Sept Sherman Similarly Simon and Schuster social Story of Philosophy tion Weekly Wells's William William Lyon Phelps Woodberry Woodberry's Woollcott writers wrote Yale