Lexington Books
Pages: 280
•
Trim: 6⅜ x 9
978-1-4985-7560-7 • Hardback • June 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)
978-1-4985-7561-4 • eBook • June 2019 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
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