A01=Prof. Dr. Sascha Pöhlmann
A01=Sascha Pöhlmann
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
American democracy
American literature
Assassination fiction
Author_Prof. Dr. Sascha Pöhlmann
Author_Sascha Pöhlmann
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=JBCC
Category=JFC
COP=United States
cultural significance
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
individualism
Language_English
literary analysis
literature and society
mass society
PA=Available
political themes
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9781640141131
- Weight: 414g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 19 Aug 2021
- Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Conceptualizes the genre of American assassination fiction as a dramatization of the tension between individualism and mass society in US culture.
Vote with a Bullet is the first systematic study of assassination in American fiction. It proffers not only a fundamental overview of the genre but also an argument about its larger cultural, aesthetic, and political significance in the present moment as well as in the respective historical contexts of the works themselves.
The study argues that American assassination fiction is a symbolic condensation of the larger conflict between individual and society that is at the heart of modern democracy, and that has been especially contested in the democratic culture of the US. Starting with Henry James's The Princess Casamassima (1886) and ending with Noah Hawley's The Good Father (2012), the chapters analyze twelve works ranging from canonical classics to popular genre fiction. A conclusion considers Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day (2006). The book describes the loose continuum of assassination fiction as an imaginary laboratory in which fantasies of individual empowerment and social unity play out in different ways, negotiating the tension between individualism and mass society in a democracy that is based on the former but must restrict it to preserve the latter. Furthermore, the study connects the imaginary of assassination with a variety of related themes such as hegemonic masculinity and whiteness, electoral and non-electoral political choice, agency panic, subjectivity, as well as conspiracies and conspiracy theory.
SASCHA PÖHLMANN is Professor of North American Literature and Culture at TU Dortmund University, Germany.
