Gravity Fails: The Comic Jewish Shaping of Modern America

by James D. Bloom

Overview

The comedic work of the children of modern Jewish immigrants overturbaned the prevailing languages and imageries with which an Anglocentric United States had traditionally represented and expanded itself. In Gravity Fails: The Comic Jewish Shaping of Modern America, James D. Bloom approaches these developments by first surveying this transformation as it affected literature, entertainment, commerce, and politics, and then offers sharply focused chapters that look at changes in sexual candor, reactions to the Holocaust, and critiques of race.

Indeed, the personae discussed here pioneered unprecedented candor toward and scrutiny about sex and violence, and no other book delves as deeply or as widely among art forms, media, and levels of cultural hierarchy. Including considerations of the work of such diverse artists as Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce, Gilda Radner, Philip Roth, Jerry Seinfeld, and Stephen Sondheim, Gravity Fails provides a unique, penetrating, and hilarious look at a major force in the progress of American culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275977207
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	06/30/2003
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

JAMES D. BLOOM is Professor of English and Director of American Studies and the Self-Directed Inquiry Program at Muhlenberg College, where he teaches writing and literature. He is the author of The Stock of Available Reality, Left Letters, and Literary Bent, and his shorter work has appeared in such publications as The New York Times Book Review, American Literature, and Style.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface
Chutzpah in the Promised Land: An Overture
The Revolt of the Horny
Talking Heads Shrinking Heads
Nazi Follies
A Blonder Shade of Dark
Lost Tribes: A Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index