Canadian Review of American Studies Volume 46, Number 1, Spring 2016

Canadian Review of American Studies
Volume 46, Number 1, Spring 2016
http://bit.ly/cras461

“Faggots, Fame and Firepower”: Teenage Masculinity, School Shootings, and the Pursuit of Fame
Richard T. Evans
This study of novels, films, and music dating from the late 1970s to the new millennium examines fictional and pop-culture presentations of school shootings, including the 1999 Columbine Massacre. The article also investigates notions of masculinity, normative heterosexuality, fame/infamy, homophobia, and violence within American culture. The fragility and uncertainty of proper masculine self-expression is unpacked and reimagined across a variety of texts, demonstrating how various authors have negotiated with the notions of teenage masculinity, belonging, isolation, and rage.  http://bit.ly/crasaopm16c

Cagean Silence and the Comunis of Communication
Dani Spinosa
Looking at John Cage’s “62 Mesostics Re Merce Cunningham,” the article argues that the sequence refuses exegesis, invites attentive and engaged readers, and offers meditative koans. In the end, the sequence looks to include the reader in a communal process of meaning making. http://bit.ly/crasaopm16

Pitiless Adolescents and Young Crusaders: Reimagining Ayn Rand’s Readers
Claudia Franziska Brühwiler
In the United States, Ayn Rand’s (1905–1982) novels still appeal to a large readership, in spite of their age and length. While many attribute Rand’s lasting popularity to her effect on the presumably young and impressionable, few have actually explored why her novels at times prove to be such a transformative reading experience. The article retraces Rand’s impact, through the lens of four writers who have reimagined her readers: Gene H. Bell-Villada, in the novella The Pianist Who Liked Ayn Rand; Tobias Wolff, in Old School; William F. Buckley, in Getting It Right; and Mary Gaitskill, in Two Girls, Fat and Thin. While Bell-Villada, Wolff, and Buckley convey their own attitudes toward Rand through their characters and shy away from creating strong Randian adherents, Gaitskill’s dark satiric novel offers a surprisingly more empathic account of a pseudo-Randian acolyte. http://bit.ly/crasaopm16b

Ridge’s Joaquín Murieta: Banditry, Counterinsurgency, and Colonial Power after Guadalupe-Hidalgo
David J. Drysdale
The article explores the role that the language of banditry and outlawry played in the transformation of Mexican territory into American national space in the wake of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Through a reading of Cherokee author John Rollin Ridge’s The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, it suggests that the appellation of “bandit” attached to Mexican resistance worked to delegitimate racialized resistance to American colonization while authorizing anti-Mexican, vigilante violence as a nationalizing activity for Euro-Americans living in the borderlands. http://bit.ly/cras461a

Trusting America: Undine Spragg’s Revolutionary Break in The Custom of the Country
David Grant
This article claims that Undine Spragg’s ascent in Wharton’s The Custom of the Country represents a victory over the traditional American faith in historical continuity as a model for personal progress. In Undine’s recovered memory, oratory suffers a comic debunking that frees Undine to untie the bonds of generational rededication. http://bit.ly/cras461b

Debunking the Diasporic “China Doll” with Satirical Disquietude: Young Jean Lee’s Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven
Seunghyun Hwang
Asian-American women are confronted with both homeland traditions and American culture, caught between two conflicting cultural identities in a third time-space. This article examines the strategies playwright Young Jean Lee uses to excogitate this dual identity within the context of diasporic disquietude, debunking the “china doll” stereotypical portrayal of diasporic Asian women. http://bit.ly/cras461c


AMERICAN STUDIES IN REVIEW
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: Reflections on the Evolution of American Think Tanks
Donald E. Abelson
The rise of American think tanks and their efforts to shape public opinion and public policy has generated considerable interest in recent years. This interest has been fuelled by speculation that think tanks have come to play an increasingly influential role in American politics. The article explores the evolution of think tanks in the United States and explains why these institutions warrant closer scrutiny. http://bit.ly/crasaopm16d


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COMPLETE ARCHIVE NOW AVAILABLE!
Canadian Review of American Studies Online now offers a comprehensive resource for the best work being done in American Studies today. CRAS Online now includes the complete archive of current and previously published articles – more than 1200 articles, reviews and commentaries – going back to 1970(issue1.1).   www.utpjournals.com/cras

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Submissions to Canadian Review of American Studies
The Canadian Review of American Studies is published three times a year. The journal publishes articles, review articles, and short reviews; its purpose is to further multi- and interdisciplinary analyses of the culture of the United States and of the social relations between the United States and Canada. The journal invites contributions, in English and French, from authors in all relevant scholarly disciplines related to the study of the United States, and the United States and Canada, as well as to the borders “in-between.” The Canadian Review of American Studies has an international standing, attracting submissions and participation from many countries in North America and Europe.
Recently, the journal has received and published articles from the following disciplines: Anthropology, English, History, American Studies, Canadian Studies, Political Science, Sociology, Communication, Law, African-American Studies, Religious Studies, Economics, Fine Arts, Cultural Studies, and Humanities.
For submission guidelines, please visit www.utpjournals.com/CRAS or contact us at:
Canadian Review of American Studies
Department of English, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 5B6
E-mail: cras@carleton.ca
Fax: (613) 234-4418
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