John George Cawelti (December 31, 1929,
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston ( ) is a city, suburb of Chicago. Located in Cook County, Illinois, United States, it is situated on the North Shore along Lake Michigan. Evanston is north of Downtown Chicago, bordered by Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, Wil ...
- May 30, 2022, Louisville, Kentucky) is the author of ''The Spy Story'' as well as other literature on the genres of
detective fiction
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—whether professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as s ...
and
westerns.
The ''John G. Cawelti Award'' is annually presented in his honor by the Popular Culture Association to the author of a noteworthy textbook, primer, or scholarly book used in the classroom on popular culture and
American Culture. He was also interested in science fiction and taught the course on it at the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
while there.
Cawelti was one of the pioneers in establishing an academic respectability to the study of popular culture. His 1971 book ''The Six Gun Mystique'', analyzes the messages contained in the western novels which were very popular for many decades with the public. His seminal ''Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture'' dissected the formulas used in these popular genres and argued for their importance alongside "high" literature.
Bibliography
;Selected Works
*(1965) ''Apostles of the Self-Made Man.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*(1971) ''The Six-Gun Mystique.'' Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
*(1973) ''Why Pop?'' San Francisco: Chandler and Sharp.
*(1976) ''Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
*(2004) ''Mystery, Violence, and Popular Culture.'' Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
References
American literary critics
Living people
1929 births
American male novelists
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
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