The Routledge Companion to American Literary Journalism
Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions Series

Taking a thematic approach, this new companion provides an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and international study of American literary journalism.

From the work of Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman to that of Joan Didion and Dorothy Parker, literary journalism is a genre that both reveals and shapes American history and identity. This volume not only calls attention to literary journalism as a distinctive genre but also provides a critical foundation for future scholarship. It brings together cutting-edge research from literary journalism scholars, examining historical perspectives; themes, venues, and genres across time; theoretical approaches and disciplinary intersections; and new directions for scholarly inquiry.

Provoking reconsideration and inquiry, while providing new historical interpretations, this companion recognizes, interacts with, and honors the tradition and legacies of American literary journalism scholarship. Engaging the work of disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, African American studies, gender studies, visual studies, media studies, and American studies, in addition to journalism and literary studies, this book is perfect for students and scholars of those disciplines.

PART 1: Historical Perspectives

1. "From the Boston News-Letter, Through the ‘Couranteers’: Epistolarity, Reportage, and Entertaining Literature in Colonial American Newspapers." Colin T. Ramsey.
2. "The Antebellum Origins of American Literary Journalism: Five Pioneers." Carolyn L. Karcher.
3. "Literary Journalism in Transition: The Early Memoirs of William Grimes, Mattie Jackson, and Nicholas Said." Jessie Lafrance and Barbara McCaskill.
4. "American Realism and the Stirrings of Literary Journalism." Thomas Connery.
5. "Literary Journalism and America’s Naturalistic Writers." Roark Mulligan.
6. "Journalistic Literature: Female Reporters and Newspaper Fiction,

1880-1930." Karen Roggenkamp.

7. "Two Gilded Ages: Literary Muckrakers 1900s/2000s." Cecelia Tichi.
8. "‘Feel the Fact’: The 1930s Reportage of Joseph North, John L. Spivak, and Meridel LeSueur." Don Dingledine.
9. "Performative Criticism and the Problem of Modernist Chic: Gertrude Stein, Janet Flanner, and Dorothy Parker." Nancy Bombaci.
10. "The New Journalism, 1960-1980." John J. Pauly.
11. "Eternal Present Tense: The New Journalism Moved beyond Basic Needs to Tell Deeper Narratives about Chicago ‘68." Bill Reynolds.
12. "Literary Journalism and Alternative Media." Susan Keith.
13. "From Magazines to Newsprint: How Literary Journalism Went 'Mainstream'." Jim Collins.
14. "Literary Journalism at the Center: A Process of Maturation."Miles Maguire.
15. "Coming of Age as a Writer in the 1960s: Realizations about Voice." Mark Kramer.

PART 2: Themes, Venues, and Genres across Time

16. "Of Troops and Tropes: U.S. Literary War Journalism from the Civil War to the War on Terror." John Bak.
17. "Literary Journalism and Social Activism." Nancy L. Roberts.
18. "Literary Journalism and American Magazines." Doug Underwood.
19. "Literary Journalism’s Historical Lineage: In Defense of Mencken." Stacy Spaulding.
20. "A Short, Comprehensive History of Literary Sports Journalism." Ted Geltner and Ted Spiker.

PART 3: Theorizing American Literary Journalism: Disciplinary Intersections

21. "American Literary Journalism and Book History: Crossing the Divide." Kathy Roberts Forde.
22. "Exploring the Referentiality of Narrative Literary Journalism." John C. Hartsock.
23. "Immersion Journalism and The Second Order Narrative." Christopher P. Wilson.
24. "Conceptualizing an Ecological Approach to Ethical Literary Journalism." Lindsay Morton.
25. "The Ethnographic Impulse." Bruce Gillespie.
26. "From Major to Minor: Literary Journalism and the First Person." Lisa A. Phillips.

PART 4: New Directions for Scholarly Inquiry

27. "The ‘Black Difference’ in African American Literary Journalism." Roberta S. Maguire.
28. "Metabolizing Genres: American Poetry and Literary Journalism." William E. Dow.
29. "The Revivifying Flames of Rock and Roll Journalism." Todd Schack.
30. "Literary Journalism and the Pedagogy of Liberal Education." Jeffrey C. Neely and Mitzi Lewis.
31. "From Magic Lantern Slides to Virtual Reality: Tracing the Visual in and around American Literary Journalism." Jacqueline Marino and Susan Jacobson.
32. "Literary Journalism and Ecocriticism." Robert Alexander.
33. "The Disclosure of Difference: Literary Journalism and the Postmodern." Pascal Sigg.
34. "Beyond Comparison: American Literary Journalism in a Global Context." Isabelle Meuret.
35. "Literary Journalism in the Digital Age." David O. Dowling.
    

William E. Dow is Professor of American Literature at the Université Paris-Est (UPEM) and Professor of English at The American University of Paris. He is the author of the book Narrating Class in American Fiction (2009) and co-editor of Richard Wright: New Readings in the 21st Century (2011), Richard Wright in a Post-Racial Imaginary (2014), and Of Latitudes Unknown: James Baldwin’s Radical Imagination (2019). He is also Associate Editor of Literary Journalism Studies (Northwestern University Press).
Roberta S. Maguire is the Oshkosh Northwestern Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. She has published extensively on Albert Murray, including Conversations with Albert Murray (1998), as well as essays on Alice Childress, Anna Julia Cooper, Zora Neale Hurston, Lewis Nordan, and Walker Percy. An associate editor of Literary Journalism Studies, she served as the guest editor for the Fall 2013 special issue devoted to African American literary journalism.

Yoko Nakamura is a graduate student in Interdisciplinary Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Iowa. She holds a BA in International Economics and International Politics from the American University of Paris.