American Literary Manuscripts: A Checklist of Holdings in Academic, Historical and Public Libraries in the United States. Committee on Manuscript Holdings, American Literature Group, Modern Language Association of America

1962 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-183
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Reed
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Literature Group

Reading the Indians: The Ramona Myth in American Culture

Prospects ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 153-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Moylan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
American Literature ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Public Library ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Public ◽  
Uncle Tom's Cabin ◽  
19Th Century America

Despite, or perhaps because of, its popularity in 19th-century America,Ramona(1884), Helen Hunt Jackson's nostalgic novel of the California mission Indians, has seemed to offer little to academic readers. Seldom appearing on the lists of required reading for college courses in American literature, Jackson's novel has also been virtually ignored by literary and cultural scholars. Nevertheless,Ramonahas had an active and influential “cultural life.” Jackson's Indian novel appealed to generations of readers from a wide variety of regions and socioeconomic classes. Published in the same year asHuckleberry Finn, Ramonafirst ran as a six-month serial in theChristian Unionand subsequently amassed tremendous sales figures both in the United States and abroad. In 1885; for example,Ramonasold 21,000 copies as one of the year's best-sellers, and by 1900 readers had purchased more than 74,000 copies. Despite the lack of cheap, reprint editions, the novel continued to sell roughly 10,000 copies per year for most years through 1935. Held by 68 percent of U.S. libraries in 1893, it was one of only three contemporary novels held by 50 percent or more of the public libraries in the United States. Indeed, at least one of them had enormous trouble meeting public demand for the novel: in 1914 the Los Angeles Public Library was circulating 105 copies ofRamona, but it still had a waiting list; by 1946 the library had bought over a thousand copies of the novel. Never out of print,Ramonahas been translated into “all known languages” and has been printed hundreds of times in dozens of editions. The popularity ofUncle Tom's Cabinwas phenomenal, but inRamonaHarriet Beecher Stowe's novel had a worthy rival. Clearly a powerful explanatory myth for generations of American readers,Ramonadeserves serious attention from literary and cultural scholars alike.

How Do We Write, Now?

PMLA ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 133 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gayatri Chakravorty Spiyak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global South ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Early Modern Era ◽  
Modern Era

How do we write, now? since i am writing for the pages of the publications of the modern language association of america, I presume the “we” here describes teachers of literature in the United States. I, outside in that “we,” think that most of us write, for a variety of reasons, with the presumed inclusion of “the global South” in our audience; although I also have the feeling that a lot of us, folks that I do not really know, ignore this requirement altogether. Geraldine Heng's important work has made us aware of this absence in the study of the literature of the Middle Ages. From the early modern era on, however, progressive writing does have this cultural requirement.

Public Libraries in the United States: Fiscal Year 2001

2003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne Chute ◽  
◽  
P. Elaine Kroe ◽  
Patricia O'Shea ◽  
Maria Polcari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fiscal Year

Public Libraries in the United States: Fiscal Year 1999

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne Chute ◽  
P. Elaine Kroe ◽  
Patricia Garner ◽  
Maria Polcari ◽  
Cynthia Jo Ramsey
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fiscal Year

Dilemmas and Prospects of Writing a Bahá’í Encyclopedia

1989 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-31
Author(s):  
Will C. Van Den Hoonaard
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Present Status ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
High Standard ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
General Reader ◽  
Encyclopedic Dictionary ◽  
Current Stage

This paper addresses the need for a Bahá’í encyclopedia and describes the nature, organization, and editing of the multi-volume Bahá’í encyclopedic dictionary project endorsed in 1984 by the United States Bahá’í community. The encyclopedia will serve both Bahá’í and non-Bahá’í researchers arid scholars, the general reader; and university and public libraries. This paper considers the significance of the encyclopedia in terms of other Bahá’í encyclopedic works and in terms of the current stage in the development of the Bahá’í community. However desirable such a project may be, a number of dilemmas accompany its undertaking. These dilemmas relate to the present status of Bahá’í scholarship, the embryonic nature of primary sources, the high standard of scholarship exemplified by the works of Shoghi Effendi, and the relative newness of the Bahá’í religion. The prospects of the encyclopedic undertaking are expected to generate considerable scholarship and to provide intellectual vigor to issues raised by Bahá’ís and their critics.

Of frameworks and the goals of collegiate foreign language education: critical reflections

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Byrnes,
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Educational Goals ◽  
Modern Language Association ◽  
Multiple Literacies ◽  
Performance Development ◽  
Viable Approach

AbstractThe paper suggests that among reasons for the difficulties collegiate foreign language (FL) programs in the United States (and most likely elsewhere) encounter in assuring that their students attain the kind of upper-level multiple literacies necessary for engaging in sophisticated work with FL oral and written texts may be the fact that prevailing frameworks for capturing FL performance, development, and assessment are insufficient for envisioning such textually oriented learning goals. The result of this mismatch between dominant frameworks, typically associated with communicative language teaching, and the goals of literary cultural studies programs as humanities programs is that collegiate FL departments and their faculty members face serious obstacles in their efforts to create the kind of coherent, comprehensive, and principled curricula that would be necessary for overcoming what are already extraordinary challenges in an educational environment that provides little support for long-term, sustained efforts at language development toward advanced multiple literacies. The paper traces these links by examining three such frameworks in the United States: the Proficiency framework of the 1980s, based on the ACTFL oral proficiency interview, the Standards framework of the 1990s, part of a more general standards movement in U.S. education, and the most recent document, by the Modern Language Association (MLA), which focuses on the need for new curricular structures in collegiate FL education. Specifically, it provides an overview of the U.S. educational landscape with an eye toward the considerable influence such frameworks can have in the absence of a comprehensive language education policy; lays out key characteristics that would be necessary for a viable approach to collegiate FL education; probes the complex effects the three frameworks have had in collegiate FL programs; and explores how one department sought to counter-act their detrimental influence in order to affirm and realize a humanistically oriented approach to FL education. The paper concludes with overall observations about the increasing power of frameworks to set educational goals and ways to counteract their potentially unwelcome consequences.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document