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Literary Journalism and Social Justice

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  • © 2022

Overview

Editors:
  1. Robert Alexander

    1. Department of English Language and Literature, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada

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  2. Willa McDonald

    1. Faculty of Arts Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature (MCCALL), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

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  • Uses international case studies to explore how literary journalists have addressed inequality and its consequences

  • Explains how writers encourage readers to respond to injustices of class, race, indigeneity, gender and mobility

  • Examines commitment to social justice in global history of journalism

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Table of contents (19 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
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  2. Introduction: Literary Journalism and Social Justice

    • Robert Alexander, Willa McDonald
    Pages 1-18
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Keywords

About this book

This book examines the prominent place a commitment to social justice and equity has occupied in the global history of literary journalism. With international case studies, it explores and theorizes the way literary journalists have addressed inequality and its consequences in their practice. In the process, this volume focuses on the critical attitude the writers of this genre bring to their stories, the immersive reporting they use to gain detailed and intimate knowledge of their subjects, and the array of innovative rhetorical strategies through which they represent those encounters.  The contributors explain how these strategies encourage readers to respond to injustices of class, race, indigeneity, gender, mobility, and access to knowledge. Together, they make the case that, throughout its history, literary journalism has proven uniquely well adapted to fusing facts with feeling in a way which makes it a compelling force for social change.

Reviews

“Robert Alexander and Willa McDonald have edited a wonderfully rich, absorbing, diverse and original collection of essays which make the case, convincingly, that literary journalism at its best can provide an impetus for progressive social change. The case studies here are international in focus – taking in, for example, Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, France, Manus Island, Nicaragua, Peru, Portugal, Sweden, the United States – and they draw on a wide range of theoretical approaches such as mobility theory, ethnography, Marxism, standpoint theory and even Aristotle’s notion of phronesis. A final chapter fittingly highlights the ways in which teaching literary journalism can help awaken a social consciousness among students. This is, then, an important text – and a pleasure to read.” (Professor Richard Lance Keeble, University of Lincoln, UK)

“It is my contention that the volume is likely to be a milestone in the field of global literary journalism studies, but will also be of interest in other fields, such as journalism and communication studies, comparative literature, sociology, ethnography, and the humanities at large. This original book presents many provocative ideas and bold approaches, evidence that literary journalism studies is playing a crucial part in advancing social justice.” (Isabelle Meuret, Senior Lecturer, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium)

“Editors Willa McDonald and Robert Alexander have compiled an excellent collection of scholarly essays focused on not just literary journalism as a whole, but, burrowing down, issues specifically revolving around social justice—rather than, say, Wolfe’s predilection for getting inside subcultures of all types. This focus yields important essays from major literary journalism scholars from around the world and spotlights the urgent need to accelerate research into this afflicting-the-comfortable realm as we move deeper into the third decade of this tumultuous, increasingly anti-democratic century.” (Bill Reynolds, Professor of Journalism at The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada, and Editor of Literary Journalism Studies) 



Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of English Language and Literature, Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada

    Robert Alexander

  • Faculty of Arts Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature (MCCALL), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    Willa McDonald

About the editors

Robert Alexander is Associate Professor of English at Brock University, Canada. He is the co-editor of Fear and Loathing Worldwide: Gonzo Journalism Beyond Hunter S. Thompson (2018).

Willa McDonald is Senior Lecturer in Media at Macquarie University, Australia, where she teaches and researches narrative journalism. Her books include Warrior for Peace: Dorothy Auchterlonie Green (2009) and the co-edited The Writer’s Reader (2007).


Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Literary Journalism and Social Justice

  • Editors: Robert Alexander, Willa McDonald

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89420-7

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media Studies, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-89419-1Published: 05 August 2022

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-89422-1Published: 05 August 2023

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-89420-7Published: 04 August 2022

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 326

  • Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Journalism, Literature and Technology/Media

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