Books by Jean Lee Cole
Taking up the role of laughter in society, How the Other Half Laughs: The Comic Sensibility in Am... more Taking up the role of laughter in society, How the Other Half Laughs: The Comic Sensibility in American Culture, 1895–1920 examines an era in which the US population was becoming increasingly multiethnic and multiracial. Comic artists and writers, hoping to create works that would appeal to a diverse audience, had to formulate a method for making the “other half” laugh. In magazine fiction, vaudeville, and the comic strip, the oppressive conditions of the poor and the marginalized were portrayed unflinchingly, yet with a distinctly comic sensibility that grew out of caricature and ethnic humor.
Author Jean Lee Cole analyzes Progressive Era popular culture, providing a critical angle to approach visual and literary humor about ethnicity—how avenues of comedy serve as expressions of solidarity, commiseration, and empowerment. Cole’s argument centers on the comic sensibility, which she defines as a performative act that fosters feelings of solidarity and community among the marginalized.
Cole stresses the connections between the worlds of art, journalism, and literature and the people who produced them—including George Herriman, R. F. Outcault, Rudolph Dirks, Jimmy Swinnerton, George Luks, and William Glackens—and traces the form’s emergence in the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s Journal-American and how it influenced popular fiction, illustration, and art. How the Other Half Laughs restores the newspaper comic strip to its rightful place as a transformative element of American culture at the turn into the twentieth century.
For over fifty years, members of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore met every Tuesday afterno... more For over fifty years, members of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore met every Tuesday afternoon between October and May to share their writing with the goal of getting it into print. And how they succeeded. Between 1890-1941, over a thousand publications emerged from the members of the WLCB. Their novels and historical works appeared in the catalogues of the nation's most respected publishers; their poems and stories filled the pages of magazines including Harper's, the Atlantic, and Ladies' Home Journal. Their plays were performed in Baltimore, in Washington, DC, and even on Broadway.
Yet in less than one hundred years, this astounding group of women--and their writings--have been all but forgotten, the result of changing literary tastes and the establishment of a male-dominated literary canon. This volume gives them new pride of place. Parole Femine: Words and Lives of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore is organized thematically and includes over a hundred works from all of the published authors of the Club active between 1890-1920. This rich sampling of writings by Baltimore women at the turn of the twentieth century reveals wide-ranging intellect, interests, and social and political investments that are held together by a common local perspective; it shows that Baltimore literary culture did not exist solely in the smoky clubs, restaurants, and newspaper offices frequented by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, H. L. Mencken, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Maryland state motto is "fatti maschii, parole femine" manly deeds, womanly words. This anthology restores womanly words to Baltimore cultural history.
Parole Femine: Words and Lives of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore was collected and edited by a team of undergraduate students at Loyola University Maryland. Professor Jean Lee Cole, Department of English, leads the project, which includes this anthology and the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore Online Archive at http: //loyolanotredamelib.org/Aperio/WLCB/.
The file includes uncorrected page proofs. If you are using this book for a course, please consid... more The file includes uncorrected page proofs. If you are using this book for a course, please consider adopting the book so that we can keep this work in print. Or, at least ask your library to purchase it.
Note: as of May 1, 2016, I am no longer offering the complete set of proofs for download. Only the introduction and two chapters will be included. Thank you for your interest in Turner!
Papers by Jean Lee Cole
Presented at Transnational Periodical Studies conference at Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, ... more Presented at Transnational Periodical Studies conference at Johannes Gutenberg University-Mainz, Jan. 30, 2020.
On the challenges facing Editors of a Certain Age in C21 in the age of digitization-- and what we... more On the challenges facing Editors of a Certain Age in C21 in the age of digitization-- and what we might be losing.
Freddie Gray was kind of my neighbor. And I found myself responding to his death as a neighbor. A... more Freddie Gray was kind of my neighbor. And I found myself responding to his death as a neighbor. As a neighbor, and kind of by accident, as an activist. Which all ends up leading to Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" and thoughts on what it means to be a counter-friction against the machine. This essay was solicited as part of a roundtable on responses to Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" following events in Ferguson, MO. The version uploaded here corrects formatting problems in the print version.
Description of a magazine-based assignment used for an American literature survey course, taught ... more Description of a magazine-based assignment used for an American literature survey course, taught at a university without archival/special collections, published in Teaching Bibliography, Textual Criticism, and Book History, ed. Ann R. Hawkins (Pickering & Chatto, 2006).
Public scholarship by Jean Lee Cole
The Home Weekly, published by the children of Asbury and Jennie Davis and Gideon Stieff, scion of... more The Home Weekly, published by the children of Asbury and Jennie Davis and Gideon Stieff, scion of Baltimore's Stieff Silver family between 1907-1910, was a handwritten amateur newspaper that displays the creative ambition and with of the youthful members of Baltimore's elite in the early twentieth century. The 1908 Christmas issue is included in its entirety, with color full-page images. Published in the Bolton Hill Bulletin on Dec. 2, 2016.
On the 45th anniversary of the Bolton Hill Bulletin, neighborhood newsletter for Bolton Hill, his... more On the 45th anniversary of the Bolton Hill Bulletin, neighborhood newsletter for Bolton Hill, historic district in Baltimore, MD, this piece in the online Bulletin published on Jan. 29, 2016 takes a look back at how one Baltimore neighborhood fought to maintain its identity, attract new residents, and celebrate City life in the wake of the white flight that followed the Baltimore riots of 1968.
In my 4th podcast for EN 101 Understanding Lit, I focus on poetry based on syllable counts and so... more In my 4th podcast for EN 101 Understanding Lit, I focus on poetry based on syllable counts and sound units. First I talk about the cultural specificity of the haiku as well as how the content is structured in the poem, and then turn to the tanka, which has a history similar to that of the sonnet but also was used as an expression of protest and resistance by Japanese Americans during and after internment. (8 min.)
In podcast #3 for the formal poetry unit of EN 101 Understanding Literature, I introduce repetiti... more In podcast #3 for the formal poetry unit of EN 101 Understanding Literature, I introduce repetition-based forms, including the pantoum—centering on Natasha Trethewey's "Incident." (5 min.)
Podcast for EN 101 Understanding Literature--each week I get under the hood of a poem and see wha... more Podcast for EN 101 Understanding Literature--each week I get under the hood of a poem and see what makes it work, focusing on formal characteristics, the history of the form, its social context, and intended audience. This week: sonnets—featuring a great one by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, two bad ones by me, and another bad one by Billy Collins. Which is better than nothing. (10 min.)
Podcast for EN 101 Understanding Literature--each week I get under the hood of a poem and see wha... more Podcast for EN 101 Understanding Literature--each week I get under the hood of a poem and see what makes it work, focusing on formal characteristics, the history of the form, its social context, and intended audience. (5 min.)
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Books by Jean Lee Cole
Author Jean Lee Cole analyzes Progressive Era popular culture, providing a critical angle to approach visual and literary humor about ethnicity—how avenues of comedy serve as expressions of solidarity, commiseration, and empowerment. Cole’s argument centers on the comic sensibility, which she defines as a performative act that fosters feelings of solidarity and community among the marginalized.
Cole stresses the connections between the worlds of art, journalism, and literature and the people who produced them—including George Herriman, R. F. Outcault, Rudolph Dirks, Jimmy Swinnerton, George Luks, and William Glackens—and traces the form’s emergence in the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s Journal-American and how it influenced popular fiction, illustration, and art. How the Other Half Laughs restores the newspaper comic strip to its rightful place as a transformative element of American culture at the turn into the twentieth century.
Yet in less than one hundred years, this astounding group of women--and their writings--have been all but forgotten, the result of changing literary tastes and the establishment of a male-dominated literary canon. This volume gives them new pride of place. Parole Femine: Words and Lives of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore is organized thematically and includes over a hundred works from all of the published authors of the Club active between 1890-1920. This rich sampling of writings by Baltimore women at the turn of the twentieth century reveals wide-ranging intellect, interests, and social and political investments that are held together by a common local perspective; it shows that Baltimore literary culture did not exist solely in the smoky clubs, restaurants, and newspaper offices frequented by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, H. L. Mencken, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Maryland state motto is "fatti maschii, parole femine" manly deeds, womanly words. This anthology restores womanly words to Baltimore cultural history.
Parole Femine: Words and Lives of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore was collected and edited by a team of undergraduate students at Loyola University Maryland. Professor Jean Lee Cole, Department of English, leads the project, which includes this anthology and the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore Online Archive at http: //loyolanotredamelib.org/Aperio/WLCB/.
Note: as of May 1, 2016, I am no longer offering the complete set of proofs for download. Only the introduction and two chapters will be included. Thank you for your interest in Turner!
Papers by Jean Lee Cole
Public scholarship by Jean Lee Cole
Author Jean Lee Cole analyzes Progressive Era popular culture, providing a critical angle to approach visual and literary humor about ethnicity—how avenues of comedy serve as expressions of solidarity, commiseration, and empowerment. Cole’s argument centers on the comic sensibility, which she defines as a performative act that fosters feelings of solidarity and community among the marginalized.
Cole stresses the connections between the worlds of art, journalism, and literature and the people who produced them—including George Herriman, R. F. Outcault, Rudolph Dirks, Jimmy Swinnerton, George Luks, and William Glackens—and traces the form’s emergence in the pages of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s Journal-American and how it influenced popular fiction, illustration, and art. How the Other Half Laughs restores the newspaper comic strip to its rightful place as a transformative element of American culture at the turn into the twentieth century.
Yet in less than one hundred years, this astounding group of women--and their writings--have been all but forgotten, the result of changing literary tastes and the establishment of a male-dominated literary canon. This volume gives them new pride of place. Parole Femine: Words and Lives of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore is organized thematically and includes over a hundred works from all of the published authors of the Club active between 1890-1920. This rich sampling of writings by Baltimore women at the turn of the twentieth century reveals wide-ranging intellect, interests, and social and political investments that are held together by a common local perspective; it shows that Baltimore literary culture did not exist solely in the smoky clubs, restaurants, and newspaper offices frequented by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, H. L. Mencken, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Maryland state motto is "fatti maschii, parole femine" manly deeds, womanly words. This anthology restores womanly words to Baltimore cultural history.
Parole Femine: Words and Lives of the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore was collected and edited by a team of undergraduate students at Loyola University Maryland. Professor Jean Lee Cole, Department of English, leads the project, which includes this anthology and the Woman's Literary Club of Baltimore Online Archive at http: //loyolanotredamelib.org/Aperio/WLCB/.
Note: as of May 1, 2016, I am no longer offering the complete set of proofs for download. Only the introduction and two chapters will be included. Thank you for your interest in Turner!