The Program Era

Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing

Mark McGurl

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Book Details

PAPERBACK

$19.95 • £14.95 • €18.00

ISBN 9780674062092

Publication: November 2011

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480 pages

6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

9 halftones, 13 line illustrations

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Preface
Introduction: Halls of Mirror
Part 1: “Write What You Know”/“Show Don’t Tell” (1890–1960)
- 1. Autobardolatry: Modernist Fiction, Progressive Education, “Creative Writing”
- 2. Understanding Iowa: The Religion of Institutionalization
Part 2: “Find Your Voice” (1960–1975)
- 3. The Social Construction of Unreality: Creative Writing in the Open System
- 4. Our Phonocentrism: Finding the Voice of the (Minority) Storyteller
Part 3: Creative Writing at Large (1975–2008)
- 5. The Hidden Injuries of Craft: Mass Higher Education and Lower-Middle-Class Modernism
- 6. Art and Alma Mater: The Family, the Nation, and the Primal Scene of Instruction
- 7. Miniature America; or, The Program in Transplanetary Perspective
Afterword: Systematic Excellence
Notes
Index

Also Available As

HARDCOVER | $38.50

ISBN 9780674033191

Short

Awards

2011 Truman Capote Award, Truman Capote Estate and University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop

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