Waging War on War: Peacefighting in American Literature
Giorgio Mariani
Abstract
The notion that war plays a fundamental role in the United States' idea of itself obscures the rich—and by no means naïve—seam of anti-war thinking that winds through American culture. This book engages with the question of what makes a text anti-war. Ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joel Barlow to Maxine Hong Kingston and Tim O'Brien, this book explores why sustained attempts at identifying the anti-war texts formal and philosophical features seem to always end at an impasse. The book moves a step beyond to construct a theoretical model that invites new inquiries into America's nonviolent ... More
The notion that war plays a fundamental role in the United States' idea of itself obscures the rich—and by no means naïve—seam of anti-war thinking that winds through American culture. This book engages with the question of what makes a text anti-war. Ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson and Joel Barlow to Maxine Hong Kingston and Tim O'Brien, this book explores why sustained attempts at identifying the anti-war texts formal and philosophical features seem to always end at an impasse. The book moves a step beyond to construct a theoretical model that invites new inquiries into America's nonviolent, nonconformist tradition even as it challenges the ways we study U.S. war-making and the cultural reactions to it. In the process, it defines anti-war literature and explores the genre's role in the assertive peace-fighting project that offered—and still offers—alternatives to violence.
Keywords:
anti-war literature,
American culture,
violence,
peace-fighting,
war-making,
war,
Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Joel Barlow,
Maxine Hong Kingston,
Tim O'Brien
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2015 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780252039751 |
| Published to Illinois Scholarship Online: April 2017 |
DOI:10.5406/illinois/9780252039751.001.0001 |
