Cultures of Solitude - Loneliness - Limitation - Liberation

This collection of essays comprises cultural analyses of practices of eremitism and reclusiveness in the USA, which are inseparably linked to the American ideals of individualism and freedom. Covering a time frame from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, the essays study cultural products such as novels, poems, plays, songs, paintings, television shows, films, and social media, which represent the costs and benefits of deliberate withdrawal and involuntary isolation from society. Thus, this book offers valuable contributions to contemporary cultural discourses on privacy, surveillance, new technology, pathology, anti-consumerism, simplification, and environmentalism. Solitaries can be read as trailblazers for an alternative future or as symptoms of a pathological society.

List of contents

Solitude and American Studies - Language, Body, and Gender - Gender, Politics, and Poetics - Society, Spirituality, and Religion - Space, Gender, and Ethnicity - Space, Identity, and Pathology - Technology, Community, and Identity

About the author

Ina Bergmann is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Würzburg, Germany.
Stefan Hippler is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Würzburg, Germany.

Product details

• Assisted by: Ina Bergmann (Editor), Stefan Hippler (Editor)
• Publisher: Peter Lang
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.06.2017
• EAN: 9783631679074
• ISBN: 978-3-631-67907-4
• No. of pages: 330
• Dimensions: 148 mm x 26 mm x 210 mm
• Weight: 530 g
• Illustrations: 13 Abb.
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Sprachwissenschaft, Linguistik, Amerikanische Literatur, Lateinamerika, 19. Jahrhundert (1800 bis 1899 n. Chr.), Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika, USA, Amerikanische Geschichte, Süd- und Zentralamerika (inklusive Mexiko), Lateinamerika, Geschichte allgemein und Weltgeschichte, Literaturwissenschaft, allgemein, Soziale Gruppen: alternative Lebensstile, Amerikanisches Englisch, USA / Literatur, Amerika (Erdteil) / Lateinamerika, LITERARY CRITICISM / Women Authors, American Art; American Culture; American History; American Literature; Hermit; Recluse