Papers by Cyrus R. K. Patell
MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 2015
We are at a moment in which the overview as a critical genre has a new, even sexy, status. The gr... more We are at a moment in which the overview as a critical genre has a new, even sexy, status. The granddaddy of this shift is Franco Moretti's 2005 book Graphs, Maps, Trees, which takes the very, very large and long view, transhistorically and transnationally, charting the emergence of genres and of entire literary traditions by using enormous data sets. We can also thank Stephen Best and Sharon Marcus for championing "surface reading," an element of which they defined as dealing with patterns within and across texts over time. Older models of the overview often saw themselves as creating canons or setting critical agendas-R. W. B. Lewis's The American Adam (1955), F. O. Matthiessen's American Renaissance (1941), and Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic (1979) come to mind. The two books under review here, Cyrus R. K. Patell's Emergent US Literatures and Caren Irr's Toward the Geopolitical Novel, do not have such lofty ambitions, but they do propose new generic models that enlist multiple texts to construct a critical narrative. Both studies are ambitious in their range, and argue convincingly for classifying a set of US-based texts rooted in difference, marginality, and a transnational worldview as a coherent body of work. Patell's definition of "a literature" is instructive here: literatures are "an institution of culture.. .. A group of writings becomes a literature when those who produce it (the writers) or those who consume it (a group that includes readers, critics, teachers, and publishers) regard it as such" (3). While this definition strikes the reader as recursive-a literature is a literature when its writers or readers say it is-it also gets to the heart of the mechanisms of canonization. Patell's terminology, "emergent" rather than "multicultural," is also useful, especially since his purview extends beyond the usual subjects of multiculturalism: African American writing, and women's writing, which, he argues, have successfully "established themselves as legitimate academic fields" (11). Instead he focuses on Asian American, Latino, gay, and Native American literatures. Significantly for his argument, emergent writers are often explicitly invested in the mechanisms of colonialism and migration, "less interested in strategies of assimilation than in strategies of negotiation," embracing hybridity (14).
World Englishes, Global Classrooms: The Future of English Literary and Linguistic Studies, 2022
Frankenstein represents an ideal case study in the creation and spread of “global cultural herita... more Frankenstein represents an ideal case study in the creation and spread of “global cultural heritage,” and Shelley’s 1818 novel is “global text,” a monument of culture and a focal point for shared cultural heritages, past, present, and future. Thinking about how a text like Shelley’s novel has become “global” has led me to pose three different sets of questions: (1) In what ways was a text like Frankenstein “global” in its own day, adopting a “worldly” approach that transcends its particular locale? (2) How does the history of the publication, criticism, and (where applicable) the performance of the text transform it into a global cultural commodity? (3) What is the cultural legacy of the text today throughout a variety of global media forms, including plays, films, novels, operas, and works of visual art?
Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars An Anthology, 2012
American Literary History, 1999
... and." Increasingly, however, to understand emergence in Ameri-can culture, we must m... more ... and." Increasingly, however, to understand emergence in Ameri-can culture, we must movebeyond the duality ... At the end of American Literature and the Culture Wars, Jay reflects on the fact that ... become confused or resentful when they find that the aim of pedagogy appears to ...
American Literary History, 2012
Nineteenth Century Literature, 1994
Emersonian political thought subjects the term" individualism," which was invented in E... more Emersonian political thought subjects the term" individualism," which was invented in Europe as a description of the defects of Enlightenment thought and used by Tocqueville pejoratively as a critique of American democracy, to a process of idealization that enables ...
American Literary History, 2003
... Cyrus RK Patell. ... that I am arguing that the writings by Asian, Chicano/a, gay/lesbian, an... more ... Cyrus RK Patell. ... that I am arguing that the writings by Asian, Chicano/a, gay/lesbian, and Native Americans do, Williams's remarks nevertheless suggest that we avoid thinking about class at our peril, particularly when we consider texts such as Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of ...
Nineteenth-Century Literature, 1994
Emersonian political thought subjects the term" individualism," which was invented in E... more Emersonian political thought subjects the term" individualism," which was invented in Europe as a description of the defects of Enlightenment thought and used by Tocqueville pejoratively as a critique of American democracy, to a process of idealization that enables ...
Nineteenth-Century Literature, 1998
Historically Speaking, 2009
American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia, 2004
The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of New York, 2010
New Directions in the History of the Novel, 2014
South Atlantic Review, 1997
Books by Cyrus R. K. Patell
From A New Hope to The Rise of Skywalker and beyond, this book offers the first complete assessme... more From A New Hope to The Rise of Skywalker and beyond, this book offers the first complete assessment and philosophical exploration of the Star Wars universe.
Lucasfilm examines the ways in which these iconic films were shaped by global cultural mythologies and world cinema, as well as philosophical ideas from the fields of aesthetics and political theory, and now serve as a platform for public philosophy. Cyrus R. K. Patell also looks at how this ever-expanding universe of cultural products and enterprises became a global brand and asks: can a corporate entity be considered a “filmmaker and philosopher”?
More than any other film franchise, Lucasfilm's Star Wars has become part of the global cultural imagination. The new generation of Lucasfilm artists is full of passionate fans of the Star Wars universe, who have now been given the chance to build on George Lucas's oeuvre. Within these pages, Patell explores what it means for films and their creators to become part of cultural history in this unprecedented way.
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Papers by Cyrus R. K. Patell
Books by Cyrus R. K. Patell
Lucasfilm examines the ways in which these iconic films were shaped by global cultural mythologies and world cinema, as well as philosophical ideas from the fields of aesthetics and political theory, and now serve as a platform for public philosophy. Cyrus R. K. Patell also looks at how this ever-expanding universe of cultural products and enterprises became a global brand and asks: can a corporate entity be considered a “filmmaker and philosopher”?
More than any other film franchise, Lucasfilm's Star Wars has become part of the global cultural imagination. The new generation of Lucasfilm artists is full of passionate fans of the Star Wars universe, who have now been given the chance to build on George Lucas's oeuvre. Within these pages, Patell explores what it means for films and their creators to become part of cultural history in this unprecedented way.
Lucasfilm examines the ways in which these iconic films were shaped by global cultural mythologies and world cinema, as well as philosophical ideas from the fields of aesthetics and political theory, and now serve as a platform for public philosophy. Cyrus R. K. Patell also looks at how this ever-expanding universe of cultural products and enterprises became a global brand and asks: can a corporate entity be considered a “filmmaker and philosopher”?
More than any other film franchise, Lucasfilm's Star Wars has become part of the global cultural imagination. The new generation of Lucasfilm artists is full of passionate fans of the Star Wars universe, who have now been given the chance to build on George Lucas's oeuvre. Within these pages, Patell explores what it means for films and their creators to become part of cultural history in this unprecedented way.