The familiar made strange
Subtitle: American icons and artifacts after the transnational turn
By: edited by Brooke L. Blower and Mark Philip Bradley
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Ithaca; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 213
ISBN-13: 9780801479113; 9780801452499
Subjects: Historiography; Transnationalism; National characteristics, American, in literature; National characteristics, American, in art
Description: In The Familiar Made Strange, twelve distinguished historians offer original and playful readings of American icons and artifacts that cut across rather than stop at the nation's borders to model new interpretive approaches to studying United States history. These leading practitioners of the "transnational turn" pause to consider such famous icons as John Singleton Copley’s painting Watson and the Shark, Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photograph V-J Day, 1945, Times Square, and Alfred Kinsey’s reports on sexual behavior, as well as more surprising but revealing artifacts like Josephine Baker’s banana skirt and William Howard Taft’s underpants. Together, they present a road map to the varying scales, angles and methods of transnational analysis that shed light on American politics, empire, gender, and the operation of power in everyday life.--Publisher website.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Watson and the shark / Brian DeLay; title: Oh! / Susanna Brian Rouleau; title: The many likenesses of Mary Lyon / Mary Renda; title: William Howard Taft's drawers / Andrew J. Rotter; title: Josephine Baker's banana skirt / Matthew Pratt Guterl; title: V-J day, 1945, Times Square / Brooke L. Blower; title: The Kinsey reports / Naoko Shibusawa; title: The Quiet American / Fredrik Logevall; title: That touch of mink / Nick Cullather; title: The Immigration Reform Act of 1965 / Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof; title: President Jimmy Carter's inaugural address / Mark Philip Bradley.