Joseph L. Coulombe's Books

Mark Twain and the American West

By: Joseph L. Coulombe

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Mark Twain and the American West

By: Joseph L. Coulombe

In Mark Twain and the American West, Joseph Coulombe explores how Mark Twain deliberately manipulated contemporary conceptions of the American West to create and then modify a public image that eventually won worldwide fame. He establishes the central role of the western region in the development of a persona that not only helped redefine American manhood and literary celebrity in the late nineteenth century, but also produced some of the most complex and challenging writings in the American canon. Coulombe sheds new light on previously underappreciated components of Twain's distinctly western persona. Gathering evidence from contemporary newspapers, letters, literature, and advice manuals, Coulombe shows how Twain's persona in the early 1860s as a hard-drinking, low-living straight-talker was an implicit response to western conventions of manhood. He then traces the author's movement toward a more sophisticated public image, arguing that Twain characterized language and authorship in the same manner that he described western men: direct, bold, physical, even violent. In this way, Twain capitalized upon common images of the West to create himself as a new sort of western outlaw--one who wrote. Coulombe outlines Twain's struggle to find the proper balance between changing cultural attitudes toward male respectability and rebellion and his own shifting perceptions of the East and the West. Focusing on the tension between these goals, Coulombe explores Twain's emergence as the moneyed and masculine man-of-letters, his treatment of American Indians in its relation to his depiction of Jim in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the enigmatic connection of Huck Finn to the natural world, and Twain's profound influence on Willa Cather's western novels. Mark Twain and the American West is sure to generate new interest and discussion about Mark Twain and his influence. By understanding how conventions of the region, conceptions of money and class, and constructions of manhood intersect with the creation of Twain's persona, Coulombe helps us better appreciate the writer's lasting effect on American thought and literature through the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.

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Page Count

198

Publisher

University of Missouri Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

082621956X

ISBN 13

9780826219565

Reading Native American Literature

By: Joseph L. Coulombe

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Reading Native American Literature

By: Joseph L. Coulombe

In this volume, Joseph Coulombe argues that Native American writers use diverse narrative strategies to engage with readers and are ‘writing for connection’ with both Native and non-Native audiences.

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Page Count

196

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136839593

ISBN 13

9781136839597

Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction

Intersections, Performances, and Functions

By: Joseph L. Coulombe

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Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction

Intersections, Performances, and Functions

By: Joseph L. Coulombe

Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction offers a pragmatic and theoretically informed model for analyzing how humor and gender intersect in key U.S. texts, bringing much-needed attention to the complex ways that humor can support and/or subvert reductive masculine codes and behaviors. Its argument builds upon three major humor theories – the incongruity theory, superiority theory, and relief theory – to analyze how humor is used to negotiate the shifting constructions of masculinity and manhood in American culture and literature. Focusing on explicit textual references to joking, pranks, and laughter, Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction offers well-supported, original interpretations of works by Mark Twain, Owen Wister, Dorothy Parker, Zora Neale Hurston, Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, and Sherman Alexie. The primary goal of Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction is to understand the multiple ways that humor performs and interrogates masculinity in seminal U.S. texts.

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Page Count

274

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1040226078

ISBN 13

9781040226070

Joseph Story and the Encyclopedia Americana

By: Joseph Story

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Joseph Story and the Encyclopedia Americana

By: Joseph Story

Contains a little-known series of legal essays written by Joseph Story for the first edition of the Encyclopedia Americana, edited by Francis Lieber.

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Page Count

234

Publisher

The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

Published Date

ISBN 10

1584775289

ISBN 13

9781584775287

Book's by Joseph L. Coulombe

Mark Twain and the American West

Mark Twain and the American West

Reading Native American Literature

Reading Native American Literature

Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction

Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction

Joseph Story and the Encyclopedia Americana

Joseph Story and the Encyclopedia Americana

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