We, Us, and Them: Affect and American Nonfiction from Vietnam to Trump
Author(s): Douglas Dowland (Author)
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication Date: June 15, 2009
Edition: First Edition
Language: English
Print length: 350 pages
ISBN-10: 9781594032325
ISBN-13: 9781594032325
Book Description
The Next Founders brings to light the stories of seven remarkable people, six Arabs and an Iranian. Five are men; two, women. Four are Sunnis, two are Shiites, and the seventh is mixed. Their lives revolve around a sense of mission, and while the angles from which they attack it are varied, this mission is the same for all seven–to make their countries more free and democratic.
We, Us, and Them: Affect and American Nonfiction from Vietnam to Trump
Author(s): Douglas Dowland (Author)
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication Date: March 27, 2024
Language: English
Print length: 198 pages
ISBN-10: 0813950848
ISBN-13: 9780813950846
Book Description
When Americans describe their compatriots, who exactly are they talking about? This is the urgent question that Douglas Dowland asks in We, Us, and Them. In search of answers, he turns to narratives of American nationhood written since the Vietnam War—stories in which the ostensibly strong state of the Union has been turned increasingly into an America of us versus them. Dowland explores how a range of writers across the political spectrum, including Hunter S. Thompson, James Baldwin, and J. D. Vance, articulate a particular vision of America with such strong conviction that they undermine the unity of the country they claim to extol. We, Us, and Them pinpoints instances in which criticism leads to cynicism, rage leads to apathy, and a broad vision narrows in our present moment.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Dowland makes a convincing case for the importance of thinking about affect and nonfiction as a way not only to understand the political moment of the present but also to trace some of the ways this present has developed and come into being.”—Sean Austin Grattan, author of Hope Isn’t Stupid: Utopian Affects in Contemporary American Literature
Review
The language of nationalism tends to be reductive, shrill, simplistic, otherizing, and suspicious. But why? In We, Us, and Them, Douglas Dowland offers an answer by examining the rhetorical tropes that structure and impoverish nationalist discourse, often to the detriment of democratic culture and politics. By concentrating on nonfiction in particular, this timely book shows how reality itself all too frequently becomes conscripted for narrow and exclusionary ends.―Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability
About the Author
Douglas Dowland is Associate Professor of English at Ohio Northern University and the author of Weak Nationalisms: Affect and Nonfiction in Postwar America.
We, Us, and Them: Affect and American Nonfiction from Vietnam to Trump
Author(s): Douglas Dowland (Author)
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication Date: March 27, 2024
Language: English
Print length: 198 pages
ISBN-10: 081395083X
ISBN-13: 9780813950839
Book Description
When Americans describe their compatriots, who exactly are they talking about? This is the urgent question that Douglas Dowland asks in We, Us, and Them. In search of answers, he turns to narratives of American nationhood written since the Vietnam War—stories in which the ostensibly strong state of the Union has been turned increasingly into an America of us versus them. Dowland explores how a range of writers across the political spectrum, including Hunter S. Thompson, James Baldwin, and J. D. Vance, articulate a particular vision of America with such strong conviction that they undermine the unity of the country they claim to extol. We, Us, and Them pinpoints instances in which criticism leads to cynicism, rage leads to apathy, and a broad vision narrows in our present moment.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Dowland makes a convincing case for the importance of thinking about affect and nonfiction as a way not only to understand the political moment of the present but also to trace some of the ways this present has developed and come into being.” — Sean Austin Grattan
The language of nationalism tends to be reductive, shrill, simplistic, otherizing, and suspicious. But why? In
We, Us, and Them, Douglas Dowland offers an answer by examining the rhetorical tropes that structure and impoverish nationalist discourse, often to the detriment of democratic culture and politics. By concentrating on nonfiction in particular, this timely book shows how reality itself all too frequently becomes conscripted for narrow and exclusionary ends. — Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability
Review
The language of nationalism tends to be reductive, shrill, simplistic, otherizing, and suspicious. But why? In We, Us, and Them, Douglas Dowland offers an answer by examining the rhetorical tropes that structure and impoverish nationalist discourse, often to the detriment of democratic culture and politics. By concentrating on nonfiction in particular, this timely book shows how reality itself all too frequently becomes conscripted for narrow and exclusionary ends.―Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison, author of American Insecurity and the Origins of Vulnerability
About the Author
Douglas Dowland is Associate Professor of English at Ohio Northern University and the author of Weak Nationalisms: Affect and Nonfiction in Postwar America.
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