JOURNAL ARTICLE

Aliens, Anthropologists, and American Indians: Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, Culture, and Difference in Midcentury US Modernism.

  • Published In: Modern Fiction Studies, 2023, v. 69, n. 2. P. 309 1 of 3

  • Database: Academic Search Ultimate 2 of 3

  • Authored By: Aronoff, Eric 3 of 3

Abstract

This essay argues that Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles participates in the interdisciplinary debates over culture and form that emerge in the 1920s through the 1940s, as anthropologists and artists deploy new conceptions of culture as relative, plural systems of meaning—debates played out through ethnographies of Southwest Native American peoples, in desert landscapes such as Bradbury's Mars. With Martians in the role occupied by Native Americans in anthropological discourse, Bradbury's text engages the complex interplay between pluralist difference and universalist assimilation/antiessentialism central to early Cold War conceptions of (Native) American culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additional Information

  • Source:Modern Fiction Studies. 2023/06, Vol. 69, Issue 2, p309
  • Document Type:Article
  • Subject Area:Literature and Writing
  • Publication Date:2023
  • ISSN:0026-7724
  • DOI:10.1353/mfs.2023.a899929
  • Accession Number:164304408
  • Copyright Statement:Copyright of Modern Fiction Studies is the property of Johns Hopkins University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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