Postwar American fiction and the rise of modern conservatism : a literary history, 1945-2008 /
By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the robust linkage between highbrow literary fiction and progressive liberalism was virtually axiomatic. In a 2014 cover story for National Review, 'Let Your Right Brain Run Free,' Adam Bellow, son of Saul Bellow, exemplified the typical co...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
[2021].
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| Series: | Cambridge studies in American literature and culture ;
[186]. |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the robust linkage between highbrow literary fiction and progressive liberalism was virtually axiomatic. In a 2014 cover story for National Review, 'Let Your Right Brain Run Free,' Adam Bellow, son of Saul Bellow, exemplified the typical conservative lament when faced with this fact. Unusually, though, Bellow transformed his complaint that a liberal ethos dominates the major institutions of the U.S. literary establishment into an argument for why 'conservative fiction' should be 'the next front in the culture war'. Using the left-brain/right-brain metaphor, Bellow claimed that for too long 'conservatives have favored the rational left brain at the expense of the right,' making the proverbial conservative mind 'hyperdeveloped in one respect, completely undeveloped in another'. By the left side of the conservative mind, Bellow meant the postwar creation of 'a network of think tanks, foundations, magazines and publishing houses' that were the institutional and intellectual underpinnings of the modern conservative movement. To grow the right side, Bellow believed, conservatives essentially ought to recreate that massive organizational effort to produce American literature instead of political power. 'We need our own writing programs, fellowships, prizes and so forth.' |
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| Physical Description: | viii, 295 pages ; 23 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781108832656 1108832652 |