To view prices and purchase online, please login or create an account now.



Literature and Race in Los Angeles

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Literature and Race in Los Angeles
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Julian Murphet
SeriesCultural Margins
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:214
Dimensions(mm): Height 217,Width 140
Category/GenreLiterary theory
Literary studies - general
Literary studies - from c 1900 -
ISBN/Barcode 9780521805353
ClassificationsDewey:810.9979494
Audience
Professional & Vocational
Illustrations Worked examples or Exercises

Publishing Details

Publisher Cambridge University Press
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publication Date 19 March 2001
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Los Angeles is both the most fragmented and the most minoritized metropolis in America, and its most luridly abstract and aestheticized city. With more than eighty-five languages being spoken in its classrooms, and one homogeneous visual language emanating from its entertainment industry, LA radically challenges the prospects of that archaic representational medium: literature. In its investigation of the work of Bret Easton Ellis, James Ellroy, Anna Deveare Smith and others, Literature and Race in Los Angeles articulates their aesthetic preoccupations with the structures of social space in the city. Harnessing some of the theoretical insights of Henri Lefebvre and the 'LA school' of geographers, Murphet demonstrates the versatility of literary production in LA and speculates about the fortunes of literature in a predominantly visual culture.

Reviews

'Murphet brilliantly peels away the hype to expose the racial inferno of Los Angeles history.' Mike Davis 'This is a gripping, compulsive book. In its reading of the literary readings of Los Angeles offered by thriller writers, poets, and performance artists, Murphet makes a decisive contribution to the body of work that [...] we have started to think of as LA studies. The book itself is commandingly written, each sentence deeply-pondered and finely tuned.' Stephen Connor