- Copyright Page
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Transnational Precursors of American Realism
- American Realism and Gender
- The Feminine Origins of American Literary Realism
- Realism and the Uses of Humor
- Local Color, World-System; or, American Realism at the Periphery
- Aesthetic Slippage in Realism and Naturalism
- Realism as Modernism
- Native American Realism
- African American Realism
- Ghetto Realism—and Beyond
- Asian American Realism
- The Politics of US Latino Literature and American Realism
- Ethnic Caricature and the Comic Sensibility
- Racial Realism
- The Campaign for Realism in the New York Periodical Press
- Realism and the Profession of Authorship
- Realism’s American Readers, 1860–1914
- The Censorship of Realist and Naturalist Novels, Then and Now
- Science and Aesthetics in American Realism
- Realist Temporalities and the Distant Past
- Spaces of Consumption in American Literary Realism
- Dwelling in American Realism
- Realism and Medicine
- Realism and the New Woman
- Realism and the Middle-Class Balancing Act
- Realism and Poetry
- The Evolution of American Dramatic Realism
- Visual Art, Intertextuality, and Authorship in the Golden Age of Illustration
- American Realism and Photography
- Realist Literature, Painting, and Immediacy
- Realism and the Cinematic Gaze
- Teaching Literary Realism in Transnational America
- Teaching American Realism in Germany
- Teaching and Researching American Literature and American Realism in China
- Realism 2.0
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
Starting with a critical introduction to the problematic beginnings and US-supported rise of American studies in pre– and post–WWII Germany, this chapter looks at the teaching of American realism and its development in a nation strongly influenced by US culture. Based on archival research, a statistical evaluation of annual bulletins, and information collected from fifty practitioners, the chapter offers the first quantitative and thematic analysis of course offerings at German universities (1953–2016), the first comparison of the relative importance of American realist literature in German university courses and research publications from German-speaking countries (2000–2015), and the first survey of German Americanists on methods and experiences of teaching US realism and naturalism in the Federal Republic (2017). The chapter concludes by calling for new didactic approaches to illustrate the continuing relevance of writers active in the core period of the realist tradition.
Keywords: American studies, German Americanists, realism in Germany, teaching realism, teaching naturalism, realist courses, survey of teaching
Klaus H. Schmidt teaches American literature and translation studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germersheim. His twenty-five book publications include Revisionist Approaches to American Realism and Naturalism (coeditor); American Multiculturalism and Ethnic Survival (coeditor); Engaging Dreiser (editor); and a critical edition of Theodore Dreiser’s A Traveler at Forty (with Lee Ann Draud and James L. W. West III, textual editor).
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- Copyright Page
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Transnational Precursors of American Realism
- American Realism and Gender
- The Feminine Origins of American Literary Realism
- Realism and the Uses of Humor
- Local Color, World-System; or, American Realism at the Periphery
- Aesthetic Slippage in Realism and Naturalism
- Realism as Modernism
- Native American Realism
- African American Realism
- Ghetto Realism—and Beyond
- Asian American Realism
- The Politics of US Latino Literature and American Realism
- Ethnic Caricature and the Comic Sensibility
- Racial Realism
- The Campaign for Realism in the New York Periodical Press
- Realism and the Profession of Authorship
- Realism’s American Readers, 1860–1914
- The Censorship of Realist and Naturalist Novels, Then and Now
- Science and Aesthetics in American Realism
- Realist Temporalities and the Distant Past
- Spaces of Consumption in American Literary Realism
- Dwelling in American Realism
- Realism and Medicine
- Realism and the New Woman
- Realism and the Middle-Class Balancing Act
- Realism and Poetry
- The Evolution of American Dramatic Realism
- Visual Art, Intertextuality, and Authorship in the Golden Age of Illustration
- American Realism and Photography
- Realist Literature, Painting, and Immediacy
- Realism and the Cinematic Gaze
- Teaching Literary Realism in Transnational America
- Teaching American Realism in Germany
- Teaching and Researching American Literature and American Realism in China
- Realism 2.0
- Index
