Background
Roemer, Kenneth Morrison was born on June 6, 1945 in East Rockaway, New York, United States. Son of Arthur Kenneth and Mildred (Allison) Roemer.
( How do readers transform Utopia? How do they manipulate...)
How do readers transform Utopia? How do they manipulate imaginary worlds to gain new perceptions of their own worlds, perceptions that help them build desires to change reality into a somewhere resembling the author's nowhere? How do authors engage readers in this process? How do cultures, historical forces, and literary conventions create spaces enabling authors to invite and readers to engage? These are questions addressed in Utopian Audiences, the first study to employ a wide spectrum of reader-response approaches to define the nature and impact of utopian literature. In the first part of the book, Kenneth M. Roemer establishes why utopian literature offers an attractive arena for reader-response criticism. He focuses on the literature's diversity, its provocative and multi-genre character, and the availability of documented responses as different as book illustrations and intentional communities. In the second part, he concentrates on late nineteenth-century America, which witnessed a grand outpouring of utopian literature, and in particular on Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward, the most popular and influential American utopian novel. The study progresses from broad cultural constructs to specific modern responses; from the perceptual systems and reading conventions allowing readers to "see" utopias to text-based models of implied readers and to documented readings of actual people, including Bellamy himself, reviewers, and 733 late twentieth-century readers. A fictional gathering of all the readers concludes the book.
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Roemer, Kenneth Morrison was born on June 6, 1945 in East Rockaway, New York, United States. Son of Arthur Kenneth and Mildred (Allison) Roemer.
Bachelor in English, Harvard University, 1967; Master of Arts in American Civilization, University of Pennsylvania, 1968; Doctor of Philosophy in American Civilization, University of Pennsylvania, 1971.
Assistant to distinguished teaching professor and distinguished scholar professor University Texas, Arlington, since 1971. Visiting professor Shimane University, Matsue, Japan, 1982-1983, International Christian University, Mitaka, Tokyo, 1988.
( How do readers transform Utopia? How do they manipulate...)
(Book by Kenneth Roemer)
Choir director University Catholic Community, Arlington, 1977-1987. Board directors Creative Arts Theatre and School, Arlington, 1989-1996. Member Modern Language Association (chairman Native American discussion group 1981, teaching committee, 1988-1989, publication committee 1989-1991, literature people of color committee, chairman American Indian literature division 1995, advisory board PMLA 2007-2010), Postmodern Language Association (member advisory board since 2007), Society Utopian Studies (president 2002-2006), Association Study American Indian Lits.
(founding member).
Married Claire Marie O'Keefe, June 15, 1968. Children: Yvonne Marie, Michael Kenneth.