Huh?

This is the work everyone did on the first day of class -- in alphabetical order.

Bourgeois - Belonging to or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to it perceived.  Materialistic values or conventional attitudes: a rich, bored, bourgeois family / these views will shock the bourgeois critics. ww.oxfordreference.com

Burlesque-a form of comedy characterized by ridiculous exaggeration and distortion. The essential quality that makes for burlesque is the discrepency between subject matter and style.

Conspicuous consumption: (n) ostentatious acquisition and display of expensive goods. (oxford reference online)

Darwinism-  A theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. (Answers.com)

Dilettante- Italian meaning one who takes delight in a thing like an amateur, used in fine arts. The fondness of art guarantees neither knowledge nor ablilty, and dabbles in a given subject.

Flaubert (1821-1880) French novelist and short story writer. A dminant figure in the French realist school, he achieved fame with his first published novel, Madame Bovary.
(Oxford Reference)

The Gilded Age -  The last quarter of 19th century America.  It was a time of great prosperity, as industry thrived and great fortunes were made.  But for many life was still harsh, as people continued to work dangerous jobs for horrible pay.  This prompted Mark Twain to co-author a book called The Gilded Age.  Named for the flash and glitter of the era, the book exposed the inequalities of the time.      Moss, Joyce.  "Huckleberry Finn." Literature and Its Times .  Vol. 2.  pp. 20.

Harlem Renaissance: An African-American cultural movement of the 1920's and 1930's centered in Harlem , that celebrated black traditions, the black voice, and black ways of life. (The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy 2 nd Edition p123)

i.e. – an abbreviation for id est. It is a Latin phrase meaning “that is”
e.g. – for example; for the sake of example; such as
ibid – it is the abbreviation for ibidem. It means in the same place; is used in footnotes and bibliographies to refer to the book, chapter, article, or page cited just before. (dictionary.com)

Imagism – using exact language of common speech.  Presenting the particulars exactly, making them concrete. Determination to use exact words. The Readers Companion 229

Jim Crow- The former practice of segregating black people in the United States .  Racial caste system of laws, customs, etiquette designed to segregate and disenfranchise African Americans during the Post-Reconstruction years between 1877 and the mid-1960s.  The laws regulated all social interactions between the races and imposed prohibitions of African Americans relegatin them to an inferior societal status. (Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States)

Local Color – a response to a modern world in which, wherever we are, we encounter traces of other localities: people whose lives have been shaped by voluntary or coerced movement, trans-local institutions, and commodities produced elsewhere – including images and ideas (Lamb & Thompson 120). ‘A Companion to American Fiction 1865-1914.

The lost generation- The young adults of Europe and Amerixa during WWI. They were called lost because after the war many of them were dissillusioned with the world in general and unwilling to move into settled life. Gertrude Stein popularized the expression. ( Dictionary of Cultural Literacy 2nd ed. pg. 224

Minstrel Show- The most popular form of entertainment in the mid to end of the 19 th century. Prominantly white males of Irish and Jewish descent performed. There were early, solo and group performances. Most shows were racially demeaning. ( Oxford Reference Dictionary) –Katherine Sandy

Mulatto – strictly the offspring of one black parent and one white, generally a person of mixed black and white parentage or ancestry  Dictionary of cultural hist 423

"The Other Half"/ Jacob Riis: Jacob Riis was a documentary photographer that photographed "the home bold contrasts...of immigrant life."  "Riis's photographs in his 'How the Other Half Lives' (1890) inspired middle-class viewers to measure the conditions of immigrant neighborhoods against their ideal of home." (Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century Volume 2, p. 31)

Picaro/Picaresque- A predecessor of the novel which emerged in 16 th century Spain . A realistic form of fiction which is typically about the “escapades of an insouciant rascal who lives by his wits and shows little if any alteration of character through the long succession of his adventures” (Abrams 118). [“A Glossary of Literary Terms” by Abrams]

Populism - The belief that greater popular participation in government and business is necessary to protect individuals from exploitation by inflexible bureaucracy and finical conglomerates " power to the people" is a famous populist slogan. (P.337 "The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy" )

Postmodernsim- The term postmodernism is sometimes applied to the literature and art after WWII (1939-45), when the disastrous effects on Western morale of the first war were greatly exacerbated by the experience of Nazi totalitarianism and mass extermination. ( A Glossary of Literary Terms 5th ed. pg. 109)

Progressivism: Spanning roughly the first two decades of the twentieth century, was a reform movement through which Americans struggled to cope with a wide range of social, economic, and cultural changes.

radicalism; ideologies and actions not  recognized as consistent with mainstream values. Applies to a wide range of individuals, movements, and  political groups.

Realism -  Established in the !880's, American writers began experimenting with a new way of portraying life in fiction.  Realism stresses the importance of characters who resemble real people, not idealized figments of a writer's imagination.      Moss, Joyce.  "Owl Creek Bridge."  Literature and Its Times .  Vol.2.  pp. 259.

Rebecca Harding Davis- She has emerged from the dimly lit back shelves of literary history as an author concerned with the historical experience of the industrial revolution. Her work negotiates between the ideals and utopian hopes of Transcendentalism.(Serafin- 256. Encyclopedia of American Literature)

Reconstruction: 1865-1877, following the American Civil War during which the Southern States of the Confederacy were controlled by federal government and social legislation, including the granting of new rights to black people; there was strong white opposition to new measures. ( "Reconstruction" Elizabeth Knowles Oxford University Press, 2006)

Reform- (political) moral reform of American politics was a cause that spanned the decades between the Civil War and World War I.  It became an urgent priority among college men, a small fraction of the whole population.  Title- Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century- Volume 3.  Author-Paul Franklin.  page 85.  According to Dictionary.com "reform" is the improvement or amendment of what is wrong,corrupt, or unsatisfactory.

"Remember the Maine " / Imperialism - The yellow press produced the slogan in response to the unexplained explosion and sinking of the US battleship the Maine in the harbor of Havana, Cuba in 1898. The slogan meant to place the blame on Spain, which owned Cuba at the time, and to further encourage the imperial attitudes driving the US to extend its authority over areas of the Caribbean and across the Pacific. Public pressures forced President McKinley to ask Congress to declare the Spanish-American War. (Information via Answers.com)

romanticism:  a shift in Western attitudes toward art and human activity ("Romanticism".  The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms)

Social Darwinism-  The application of Darwinism to the study of human society, specifically a theory in sociology that individuals or groups achieve advantage over others as the result of genetic or biological superiority. (Answers.com)

Trickster/Signifying Monkey:
A common "rule breaking" character in mythology who is usually male with an appetite for women & food. He is often immoral and frequently a thief who uses inventiveness to help human beings,but it often interferes with creation which results in realities such as pain or death.(Oxford Reference Collection)

The "West" refers to the western portion of the United States during the nineteenth century. For many Americans, the West remains a land of cowboys and Indians. After the Revolution, Americans resumed migration into the interior. During this period, expansion of the West as an idea began to take shape. To some groups the nineteenth century West meant new hope and new beginnings. For immigrants from western and eastern Europe, the West was a place to start a new, to build new towns and communities. (pg. 379-383 Encyclopedia of the U.S. in the Nineteenth Century Volume 3 Paul Finkelman )

Zola: Emile Zola, the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction
"Zola, Emile".  The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms.  

naturalism:  Literary method of later 19th century. Its purpose was to dispel superstition and idealization. The method was to apply to literary subjects scientific objectivity, to observe closely, to put no limitation or choice of subject, and to be more widely inclusive of details.  It wished to "tell everything", to show the environment exactly as it is by the technique of "brutal photography", to present a "slice of life", to "experiment" with the characters as if in a laboratory and trace their development as dictated by hereditary and environment. Companion to World Lit., pg. 499-500, 2nd ed., Hornstein, Percy, Brown

modernism:  a general term applied retrospectively to a wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in literature of the early 20th century.  Modernist literature is characterized by rejection of 19th century tradition. Norton website, Literary Dictionary