The Wealthy, the Brilliant, the Few : Elite Education in Contemporary American Discourse / Sophie Spieler

How does the US make sense of its elite educational system, given that it seems to be at odds with core American values, such as equality of opportunity or upward mobility? Sophie Spieler explores scholarly and journalistic investigations, self-representational texts, and fictional narratives revolv...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Funder:
VerfasserIn:
:
Year of Publication:2021
Edition:1st ed.
Language:English
Series:American Culture Studies
Physical Description:1 online resource (276 p.)
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
LEADER 04096cam a2200469 c 4500
001 993544973604498
005 20220221094418.0
006 m|||||o||d||||||||
007 cr || ||||||||
008 220221s2021 gw o ||| 0 eng d
020 |a 3-8394-5729-7 
024 7 |a 10.1515/9783839457290  |2 doi 
035 |a (CKB)5590000000487000 
035 |a (DE-B1597)582835 
035 |a (DE-B1597)9783839457290 
035 |a (MiAaPQ)EBC6763297 
035 |a (Au-PeEL)EBL6763297 
035 |a (OCoLC)1262308082 
035 |a (transcript Verlag)9783839457290 
035 |a (MiAaPQ)EBC6956328 
035 |a (Au-PeEL)EBL6956328 
035 |a (oapen)https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/71379 
035 |a (MiAaPQ)EBC30536255 
035 |a (Au-PeEL)EBL30536255 
035 |a (EXLCZ)995590000000487000 
040 |a DE-B1597  |b eng  |c DE-B1597  |e rda 
041 0 |a eng 
044 |a gw  |c DE 
072 7 |a LIT004020  |2 bisacsh 
082 0 |a 970.980 
100 1 |8 1\u  |a Spieler, Sophie  |u Freie Universität Berlin, Deutschland  |4 aut 
245 1 4 |a The Wealthy, the Brilliant, the Few  |b Elite Education in Contemporary American Discourse  |c Sophie Spieler 
250 |a 1st ed. 
260 |a Bielefeld  |b transcript Verlag  |c 2021 
300 |a 1 online resource (276 p.) 
336 |a text  |b txt  |2 rdacontent 
337 |a computer  |b c  |2 rdamedia 
338 |a online resource  |b cr  |2 rdacarrier 
490 0 |a American Culture Studies  |v 33 
540 |a This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 license:   |u https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0   |u https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy 
546 |a In English. 
536 |a funded by Freie Universität Berlin 
505 0 |a Frontmatter 1 Contents 5 Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 9 1. Introductory Remarks 21 2. Starting Points: Eliteness and Education in American Culture 21 3. 'Very Important, Very Powerful, or Very Prominent': Eliteness in America 29 4. 'Excellence and Equity': Merit as the Price of Admission 50 5. 'A Touchy Subject'? Class and Elite Education 58 6. Concluding Remarks 67 1. Introductory Remarks 69 2. Mapping the Critical Landscape 73 3. Progressivist Critiques 83 4. Conservative Critiques 95 5. Concluding Remarks 110 1. Introductory Remarks 113 2. Elite College Admissions: A Discourse of Impossibility and Pathology 118 3. A Meritocracy of Affect 123 4. Epistemological Frames: Diversity, the Good Life, Community 135 5. Concluding Remarks 170 1. Introductory Remarks 175 2. Exposition: Fiction in the Discourse of Elite Education 178 3. Prep in the Discourse: Publicity, 'Preppiness', and the Neoliberal Imagination 186 4. Diversity, Class, Mobility: Prep's Cultural Work 211 5. Concluding Remarks 242 Conclusion 249 Works Cited 257 
520 |a How does the US make sense of its elite educational system, given that it seems to be at odds with core American values, such as equality of opportunity or upward mobility? Sophie Spieler explores scholarly and journalistic investigations, self-representational texts, and fictional narratives revolving around the Ivy League and its peers in order to understand elite education and its peculiar position in American cultural discourse. Among the book's most surprising and groundbreaking insights is the tenacity and adaptability of meritocratic ideology across all three sub-discourses, despite its fundamental incompatibility with the American educational system. 
545 0 |8 1\u  |a Sophie Spieler studied American Studies, German, and English at the Universities of Greifswald, Dresden, and, as a Fulbright Scholar, at Fairfield University (CT, USA). She received her PhD from the Graduate School of the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. She has published on class, capital, and education as well as masculinity studies, Edith Wharton, and post-feminism. 
502 |b Doctoral Thesis  |c Freie Universität Berlin  |d 2017 
650 4 |a Social Stratification; Distinction; Meritocracy; Campus Novels; Capital; Princeton; Elite Education; Class; Discourse Analysis; Neoliberalism; Ivy League; Curtis Sittenfeld; Literature; Education; America; American Studies; Cultural Studies; Cultural Theory; Literary Studies; 
653 |a America. 
653 |a American Studies. 
653 |a Campus Novels. 
653 |a Capital. 
653 |a Class. 
653 |a Cultural Studies. 
653 |a Cultural Theory. 
653 |a Curtis Sittenfeld. 
653 |a Discourse Analysis. 
653 |a Distinction. 
653 |a Education. 
653 |a Elite Education. 
653 |a Ivy League. 
653 |a Literary Studies. 
653 |a Literature. 
653 |a Meritocracy. 
653 |a Neoliberalism. 
653 |a Princeton. 
776 |z 3-8376-5729-9 
710 2 |a Freie Universität Berlin  |e funder.  |4 fnd  |4 http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/fnd 
830 0 |a American Culture Studies 
906 |a BOOK 
ADM |b 2024-03-16 06:10:06 Europe/Vienna  |f system  |c marc21  |a 2021-06-25 18:52:22 Europe/Vienna  |g false 
AVE |i DOAB Directory of Open Access Books  |P DOAB Directory of Open Access Books  |x https://eu02.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/uresolver/43ACC_OEAW/openurl?u.ignore_date_coverage=true&portfolio_pid=5337774640004498&Force_direct=true  |Z 5337774640004498  |b Available  |8 5337774640004498