Social Engagement and Multiculturalism in Louis Adamic’s Literary Journalism and Documentary Prose (original) (raw)

Louis Adamic: Slovene-American Literary Journalism Avant La Lettre

Louis Adamič (1898–1951) immigrated to the U.S. as a young boy and eventually established himself as one of the most prolific and shrewd writers, journalists, and socio-political commentators of Slovene descent in America. This article focuses on those of Adamič’s narratives that display characteristics of literary journalism, a discourse that has been in use for over a hundred years, but particularly grew in importance during the 1960s in the U.S. Adamič wrote texts that could be labeled literary or narrative journalism three decades before the big boom of this literary-journalistic genre. My analysis searches for typical features of this subjective, perceptual discourse in Adamič’s longer, book-length narratives (the two most notable examples being The Native’s Return [1934] and The Eagle and the Roots [1952]) and, moreover, gives insight into political, social, as well as more personal circumstances that inspired Adamič to produce such writing.

The Parrot and the Cannon. Journalism, Literature and Politics in the Formation of Latin American Identities

2011

THE PARROT AND THE CANNON. JOURNALISM, LITERATURE AND POLITICS IN THE FORMATION OF LATIN AMERICAN IDENTITIES Pablo Calvi The Parrot and the Cannon. Journalism, Literature and Politics in the Formation of Latin American Identities explores the emergence of literary journalism in Latin America as a central aspect in the formation of national identities. Focusing on five periods in Latin American history from the post-colonial times until the 1960s, it follows the evolution of this narrative genre in parallel with the consolidation of professional journalism, the modern Latin American mass media and the formation of nation states. In the process, this dissertation also studies literary journalism as a genre, as a professional practice, and most importantly as a political instrument. By exploring the connections between journalism, literature and politics, this dissertation also illustrates the difference between the notions of factuality, reality and journalistic truth as conceived in Latin America and the United States, while describing the origins of Latin American militant journalism as a social-historical formation. Many thanks to Andie Tucher, Todd Gitlin and Graciela Montaldo for their mentoring and support. Their insightful observations and constant counseling helped me see both the tree and the forest in the vast jungle of Latin American journalism. Their generosity with time and ideas exceeded what I could have ever hoped for. Thanks to Brigitte Nacos who was always gentle, attentive and enthusiastic about this dissertation. Our conversations were unfailingly stimulating and fun, and helped me keep track of the rare occasions when I was aiming in the right direction. A fellowship at CELSA,

Introduction: Literary Journalism as a Discipline

Brazilian Journalism Research, 2018

The editors of this issue of Brazilian Research Journalism welcome that debate, firmly believing that nothing new emerges without dialogue, from outside and inside the discipline. After all, literary and journalistic studies are not haunted by their many, at times antagonistic, schools of critical thought. On the contrary, both are made richer by them. As the Brazilian adage goes: “In the struggle of the sea against the cliff, none suffers but the shellfish.” And yet, the shellfish not only survives that eternal battle; it also thrives and prospers. This volume thus hopes that any debate that it generates will ultimately serve literary journalism studies in establishing itself as a discipline unique to itself, but always open and willing to foster a dialogue with other fields of knowledge.

Mapping Narratvie NonFiction: A New Approach to Analysing Literary Journalism

The aim of this research paper is to put forward an inclusive and flexible means to explore literary journalism's rich interior by creating a broad theoretical framework and approach that is suitable for defining and analyzing any given text in this genre, using David L. Eason's typology of Ethnographic Realism and Cultural Phenomenology (1984). ER and CP are two "modes" of responding to and organizing the experience of reporting, which is typically a personalized, interpretive, and evocative account of reality. Due to the diverse aesthetic styles and approaches found in this genre, these categories have been refined and supplemented using Joseph M. Webb's theory of rationalism and romanticism in journalism (1974). By combining Eason and Webb's theories it is possible to create a spectrumfrom "objective" to "subjective"-along which to situate individual works of literary journalism. This paper includes two examples that are representative of the two modes of literary journalism: namely, David Simons's Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991) and William T. Vollmann's Riding toward Everywhere (2008). We will also illustrate how a variety of other texts can be situated along the Eason-Webb spectrum.

Literary Journalism: conceptual review, history and new perspectives

The aim of this paper is to propose a reflection on the historical roots, concepts, practices and processes of Literary Journalism. The main conclusion is that it is a field in progress, whose wealth is precisely its diversity. The results of the study point to three possible improvements. The first one is to reinforce the connection of Communications with other fields of knowledge, such as Sociology, Anthropology, and Psychology, since the in-depth treatment of this kind of text demands broad and consistent epistemological and methodological approaches. The second is the need to form efficient networks of researchers, since there is already a considerable amount of research that has been carried out in Brazil. Finally, the third issue would be the necessity to build bridges linking the international academic community to the local one, which would increase the visibility of Brazilian studies.

Journalistic Narrative: a Story of Real Life

Cecs Publicacoes Ebooks, 2013

The urban centers are home to humble human beings, who circulate in the social periphery and remain nearly invisible to most of population. Many modern journalistic narratives have sought to redeem these kinds of people of anonymity in reports that escape the impact model for information only. It's called literary journalism that presents the fact by using literature expressive resources to present real-life characters. So this communication aims to present a reading from the perspective of dialogical language of the report "Signal closed to Camila" and its illustration from Eliane Brum's book A vida que ninguém vê (2006) in order to demonstrate how to configure this real-life character, which circulates in a large urban center, living on the margins of society, whose identity is ignored by the population. The aim therefore is to discuss this narrative format that expects to awaken the reader to the reality around him/her through stories which excel at dramatic tone and tension that surrounds the characters represented therein. This kind of narrative substitutes the literary function of stories, whose current contemporary purpose is to discuss the narrator's own development process, as illustrated by the metalinguistic narratives from Nuno Ramos (2008), André Queiroz (2004), among others. To fulfill this proposal, the theoretical reference is the theory / analysis of the language from the perspective of Bakhtin's Circle, considering the dialogic relationships between image / text / context, and the compositional form, style and tone that make up the narrative evaluative reported. So it aims to demonstrate how the report configure the character's identity by giving her visibility, promoting the reader's active memory and configuring an identity profile of urban living on the urban periphery. Keywords real-life narratives; genres; dialogical analysis of language pp. 134-144

Representations of Native Americans in Adamic’s Writing on (New) Immigrants

Two Homelands, 2020

This article presents an overview of the attention Louis Adamic dedicated to Native Americans in various written works and public engagements and compares it with his writing on new immigrants in the light of his understanding of the importance of the preservation of immigrants’ identity and issues of integration and nation-building as they relate to American identity. The article also explores the views on interculturaland interethnic relationships in the United States that Adamic drew on in his treatment of Native Americans. Three works in particular will be analyzed: My America (1938), From Many Lands (1940), and A Nation of Nations (1945). The main finding is that Adamic does not deal as extensively with issues related to indigenous Americans as he does with those related to European immigrants. Nevertheless, Adamic does notcompletely neglect “the Indian story”. In some of his works, most extensively in A Nation of Nations, he specifically compares this story to the (problematic...

Spanish and Latin American narrative journalism: a comparative of issues, influences, publications and points of view of a new generation of authors

Introduction. Narrative journalism has achieved an important growth in Latin America, in the context of the so-called boom of the Latin American crónica. At a more modest level, in the Spanish sphere this journalistic modality that uses literary tools to tell real events, has experienced a particular boost relying on specialized publishers. The aim of this research is to compare points of view, issues, influences and publications between Spanish and Latin American journalists. Methodology. The study is based on in-depth interviews with 22 leading narrative journalists from Spain, Argentina and Chile. Results and conclusions. Despite the diversity of designations, journalists from both latitudes agree when identifying the keys of the genre and pointing out the difficulties for its development, due to the lack of publishing channels in mainstream media, replaced now by books and magazines. Together with the variety of subjects addressed, there are differences between the work of Spanish and Latin American journalists in narrative structure planning as well as the reciprocity of professional references. Keywords Narrative journalism; journalism and literature: crónica; journalistic genres and Spanish and Latin American journalists.