Lexington Books
Pages: 280
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9
978-1-4985-7560-7 • Hardback • June 2019 • $117.00 • (£90.00)
978-1-4985-7561-4 • eBook • June 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
Matthew Shipe is senior lecturer and the director of Advanced Writing in the English department at Washington University, Missouri.
Scott Dill is lecturer of English at Case Western Reserve University.
Chapter 1: Updike and the American Presidency
Chapter 2: “We’re None of Us Perfect”: Watergate and Adultery in John Updike’s A Month of Sundays and Memories of the Ford Administration
Chapter 3: Presidential Politics as Sexual Politics: Memories of the Ford Administration
Chapter 4: Updike, Obama and the Poetics of Hope
Chapter 5: Updike on Demagoguery
Chapter 6: ‘Love it or leave it’: America in red, gray and blue in Rabbit Redux
Chapter 7: ‘Mail’ Chauvinism: John Updike’s Postal Fetish and the Unrealizable Vision of American Democracy
Chapter 8: The Failure of Moderation in Buchanan Dying and Memories of the Ford Administration
Chapter 9: Inside Reagan’s ‘Placid, Uncluttered Head’: Roger’s Version and the Rise of Neoliberalism
Chapter 10: The Politics of Vulnerability in The Afterlife and Other Stories
Chapter 11: John Updike’s Terrorist and the Politics of Hygiene
Chapter 12: Updike’s Middle East: A Neoliberal Approach to Conflict Resolution
Chapter 13: Updike “Third-Worlds It”: Staging The Coup as Political Satire
Chapter 14: The Three Mile Island Accident and the Man from Toyota: American Cold War Cultural Politics,Ressentiment, and the Uncanny Double in Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at Rest
Chapter 15: John Updike and the World: The Politics of Identity in Brazil
This collection of essays adds depth to our understanding of Updike as a political writer. The book is especially valuable to scholars of late-twentieth and early twenty-first century literature for its investigations of intersections between the personal and the political. It exposes Updike's nuanced perspectives on institutions such as the American presidency, and it provides thought-provoking explorations of politically charged and transformative American experiences including the War in Vietnam, the Cold War, and the attacks of September 11, 2001.
— Liliana M. Naydan, Penn State Abington
This collection provides a timely and much-needed perspective on Updike and political life. The editors have selected impressive essays from established Updike critics, international scholars, and some newer voices to display a rich range of interpretations. The essays are elegantly framed by the introduction, and they collectively advance an urgent critical conversation. Updike and Politics: New Considerations is an important contribution: it sharpens our understanding of an essential American writer through a crucial context.
— Quentin Miller, Suffolk University