Politics, the Press, and Persuasive Aesthetics: Shaping the Spanish Civil War in American Periodical
Open Access
Author:
Baptista, Gregory S.
Graduate Program:
English
Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Document Type:
Dissertation
Date of Defense:
August 26, 2009
Committee Members:
Mark Stewart Morrisson, Dissertation Advisor/Co-Advisor Mark Stewart Morrisson, Committee Chair/Co-Chair Dr Robin Schulze, Committee Member Sandra Spanier, Committee Member James L W West Iii, Committee Member John Philip Jenkins, Committee Member
Keywords:
Spanish Civil War periodicals visual culture Ernest Hemingway
Abstract:
This dissertation explores the presentation of the Spanish Civil War in selected American periodicals. Understanding how war-related works functioned (aesthetically and rhetorically) requires a nuanced view of the circumstances of their production and an awareness of their immediate cultural context. I consider means of creation and publication to examine the complex ways in which the goals of truth-seeking and truth-shaping interacted—-and were acted upon by the institutional dynamics of periodical production. By focusing on three specific periodicals that occupied different points along a line leading outward from the mainstream of American culture, I examine the ways in which certain pro-Loyalist writers and editors attempted to shape the truth of the Spanish war for American readers within the contexts and inherent restrictions of periodical publication. I argue that responses to the war in these publications are products of a range of cultural and institutional forces that go beyond the political affiliations or ideological stances of particular writers.
