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Middlebrow
The term middlebrow describes easily accessible art, usually literature, and the people who use the arts to acquire culture and "class" (social prestige). First used in the British satire magazine ''Punch'' in 1925, the term ''middlebrow'' is the intermediary "brow" descriptor between ''highbrow'' and '' lowbrow'', which are terms derived from the pseudoscience of phrenology. Modernism The term middlebrow became a pejorative usage in the modernist cultural criticism, by Dwight Macdonald, Virginia Woolf, and Russell Lynes, which served the cause of the marginalisation of the popular culture in favour of high culture. Culturally, the middlebrow is classed as a forced and ineffective attempt at cultural and intellectual achievement, and as characterizing literature that emphasises emotional and sentimental connections, rather than intellectual quality and literary innovation; although postmodernism more readily perceives the advantages of the middlebrow cultural-position that is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Highbrow
Used colloquially as a noun or adjective, "highbrow" is synonymous with intellectual; as an adjective, it also means elite, and generally carries a connotation of high culture. The term, first recorded in 1875, draws its metonymy from the pseudoscience of phrenology, which teaches that people with large foreheads are more intelligent. Applications "Highbrow" can be applied to music, implying most of the classical music tradition; to literature—i.e., literary fiction and poetry; to films in the arthouse line; and to comedy that requires significant understanding of analogies or references to appreciate. The term ''highbrow'' is considered by some (with corresponding labels as 'middlebrow' 'lowbrow') as discerning or selective; and ''highbrow'' is currently distanced from the writer by quotation marks: "We thus focus on the consumption of two generally recognised 'highbrow' genres—opera and classical". The first usage in print of ''highbrow'' was recorded in 1884. The term was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reputation
The reputation of a social entity (a person, a social group, an organization, or a place) is an opinion about that entity typically as a result of social evaluation on a set of criteria, such as behavior or performance. Reputation is a ubiquitous, spontaneous, and highly efficient mechanism of social control. It is a subject of study in social, management, and technological sciences. Its influence ranges from competitive settings, like markets, to cooperative ones, like firms, organizations, institutions and communities. Furthermore, reputation acts on different levels of agency, individual and supra-individual. At the supra-individual level, it concerns groups, communities, collectives and abstract social entities (such as firms, corporations, organizations, countries, cultures and even civilizations). It affects phenomena of different scales, from everyday life to relationships between nations. Reputation is a fundamental instrument of social order, based upon distributed, spon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formalist aesthetician. He is best remembered for his association with the art movement abstract expressionism and the painter Jackson Pollock. Early life Clement Greenberg was born in the borough of the Bronx, NYC, in 1909. His parents were middle-class Jewish immigrants, and he was the eldest of their three sons. Since childhood, Greenberg sketched compulsively, until becoming a young adult, when he began to focus on literature. Greenberg attended Erasmus Hall High School, the Marquand School for Boys, then Syracuse University, graduating with an A.B. in 1930, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. After college, already as fluent in Yiddish and English since childhood, Greenberg taught himself Italian and German in addition to French and Latin. Durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Corrections
''The Corrections'' is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-20th century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium. The novel was awarded the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002. ''The Corrections'' was published to wide acclaim from literary critics for its characterization and prose. While the novel's release preceded the September 11 terrorist attacks by ten days, many have interpreted ''The Corrections'' as having prescient insight into the major concerns and general mood of post-9/11 American life, and it has been listed in multiple publications as one of the greatest novels of the 21st century. Plot summary The novel shifts back and forth through the late 20th century, intermittently following spouses Alfred and Enid Lambert as they raise their children Gary, Chip, and De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Earl Franzen (born August 17, 1959) is an American novelist and essayist. His 2001 novel '' The Corrections'', a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist, earned a James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award. His novel ''Freedom'' (2010) garnered similar praise and led to an appearance on the cover of ''Time'' magazine alongside the headline "Great American Novelist". Franzen's latest novel ''Crossroads'' was published in 2021, and is the first in a projected trilogy. Franzen has contributed to ''The New Yorker'' magazine since 1994. His 1996 '' Harper's'' essay " Perchance to Dream" bemoaned the state of contemporary literature. Oprah Winfrey's book club selection in 2001 of ''The Corrections'' led to a much publicized feud with the talk show host. In recent years, Franzen has become recognized for his opinions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in humanitarian and moral passion and one based in an ethos of scientific analysis". Through the 1980s and 1990s, the magazine incorporated elements of the Third Way and conservatism. In 2014, two years after Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes purchased the magazine, he ousted its editor and attempted to remake its format, operations, and partisan stances, provoking the resignation of the majority of its editors and writers. In early 2016, Hughes announced he was putting the magazine up for sale, indicating the need for "new vision and leadership". The magazine was sold in February 2016 to Win McCormack, under whom the publication has returned to a more progressive stance. A weekly or near-weekly for most of its history, the magazine currently ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oprah's Book Club
Oprah's Book Club was a book discussion club segment of the American talk show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', highlighting books chosen by host Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey started the book club in 1996, selecting a new book, usually a novel, for viewers to read and discuss each month.Bob Minzesheimer"How the 'Oprah Effect' changed publishing" ''USA Today'', May 23, 2011.Matthew Flamm"Publishers say farewell to Oprah Book Club boon" ''Crain's New York Business'', May 20, 2011. In total, the club recommended 70 books during its 15 years. Due to the book club's widespread popularity, many obscure titles have become very popular bestsellers, increasing sales in some cases by as many as several million copies. Al Greco, a Fordham University marketing professor, estimated the total sales of the 70 "Oprah editions" at over 55 million copies. The club has seen several literary controversies, such as Jonathan Franzen's public dissatisfaction with his novel, '' The Corrections'', having been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', broadcast from Chicago, which ran in national syndication for 25 years, from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she was the richest African-American of the 20th century and was once the world's only black billionaire. By 2007, she was sometimes ranked as the most influential woman in the world. Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a single teenage mother and later raised in inner-city Milwaukee. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teenage years and became pregnant at 14; her son was born prematurely and died in infancy. Winfrey was then sent to live with the man she calls her father, Vernon Winfrey, a barber in Nashville, Tennessee, and landed a job in radio while still in high s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book-of-the-Month Club
Book of the Month (founded 1926) is a United States subscription-based e-commerce service that offers a selection of five to seven new hardcover books each month to its members. Books are selected and endorsed by a panel of judges, and members choose which book they would like to receive, similar to how the club originally operated when it began in 1926. Members can also discuss the books with fellow members in an online forum. In late 2015, in concert with the club's 90th year, the club announced a relaunch into its current iteration. Within two years, the club had grown its membership to more than 100,000 members, primarily millennial women, and the club's presence on social media grew to over 1.2 million instagram followers. Approximately 75% of the club's titles are by up-and-coming authors, and 80% of titles are fiction. The club has also worked with a series of celebrity guest judges who bring broader awareness to new titles, and continues producing its own versions of book ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collegiate Gothic In North America
Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europe. A form of historicist architecture, it took its inspiration from English Tudor and Gothic buildings. It has returned in the 21st century in the form of prominent new buildings at schools and universities including Princeton and Yale. Ralph Adams Cram, arguably the leading Gothic Revival architect and theoretician in the early 20th century, wrote about the appeal of the Gothic for educational facilities in his book ''Gothic Quest:'' "Through architecture and its allied arts we have the power to bend men and sway them as few have who depended on the spoken word. It is for us, as part of our duty as our highest privilege to act...for spreading what is true." History Beginnings Gothic Revival architecture was used for American college buil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Old Man And The Sea
''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it tells the story of Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream off the coast of Cuba. In 1953, ''The Old Man and the Sea'' was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and it was cited by the Nobel Committee as contributing to their awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Hemingway in 1954. Plot summary Santiago is an aging, experienced fisherman who has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. He is now seen as "''salao''" (colloquial pronunciation of "''salado''", which means salty), the worst form of unlucky. Manolin, a young man whom Santiago has trained since childhood, has been forced by his parents to work on a luckier boat. Manolin remain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Our Town
''Our Town'' is a 1938 metatheatrical three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play tells the story of the fictional American small town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens. Throughout, Wilder uses metatheatrical devices, setting the play in the actual theatre where it is being performed. The main character is the stage manager of the theatre who directly addresses the audience, brings in guest lecturers, fields questions from the audience, and fills in playing some of the roles. The play is performed without a set on a mostly bare stage. With a few exceptions, the actors mime actions without the use of props. ''Our Town'' was first performed at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1938. It later went on to success on Broadway and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Described by Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written", the play remains popu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
