REAL - Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, Volume 34

Can the concept of American democratic culture provide a framework for the interpretation and critique of contemporary American populisms? Have contemporary United States writers, artists and activists imagined modes of democratic sociality that constitute the precondition for yet are irreducible to extant populist imaginaries? How has the fracturing of the media infrastructure contributed to Donald Trump’s strain of populism? Do the modes of analysis devised to diagnose twentieth century populisms provide adequate frameworks to understand Trump’s movement? The disparate yet complementary perspectives from which its contributors engage these and related questions promise to enhance the explanatory potential of this volume of REAL.