刘启君著的《汤姆·沃尔夫长篇社会小说研究--时代格局变迁下的个人地位追求(英文版)》以沃尔夫的三部长篇社会小说《虚妄的篝火》《完整的人》和《我叫夏洛特·西蒙斯》为研究对象，分别着眼于美国20世纪80年代纽约的种族政治，90年代南方迪克西文化传统的没落和21世纪盛行于美国校园的拍拖文化，探讨了三个十年里美国政治面貌和文化精神的变迁，及不同时期场域下各种社会资本的博弈以及权力地位的依附元素。

刘启君，上海外国语大学青年教师，富布赖特联合培养博士，主要从事美国现当代文学与文化研究。

Chapter 1 Introduction
A. Tom Wolfe as a Journalist and Novelist
B. Social Status as Wolfe's Major Concern
Chapter 2 The Bonfire of the Vanities
-- A Bourdieuian Analysis of the Shifting Power Dynamics in 1980s New York
A New York City in the 1980s
1. Racialized Economy and Reaganomics: Growing Disparity between White and Black
2. Master City Builder Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
3. South Bronx Decay: Demographic Shift and Highway Incursion
4. Misleading Media Report Intensifying Racial Conflict
B. Characters' Quest for Social Status: Use and Abuse of Different Forms of Capital
1. Social Stratification and Individual Habitus
2. Quest For Economic Capital Fueled by the "Bonfire of Vanity"
3. Social Capital Conferring Power and Status
4. Symbolic Capital Exercising Violence: Political Correctness and Moral Superiority
C. Inheritance of and Transcendence over Naturalistic Writing
1. The City Itself Becoming the Displaced Source of Anxiety
2. Comparison with Dreiser's Naturalist Novel Sister Carrie
Chapter 3 A Man in Full
-- Southern Cultural Drift as Shown in the Case of Its New Center, Atlanta
A. Shifting Power Dynamics in the New South
1. Rising Economic and Political Influence of the African Americans in the South
2. Dixie Tradition on the Skids
3. Atlanta, a Rising International City in the New South
4. Social Division of the Atlanta Society by "Identity Politics
B. The Triad of Male Characters' Quest for Status. Vibrancy of Atlanta's Material Culture and Spiritual Malaise Coexisting with It
1. Charlie Croker's Struggle to Retain Manhood in a Veblenian Society
2. Conrad Hensley: Messenger of Epictetus in a Panopticon
3. Roger White: Black Bourgeoisie Torn by Racial Identity Crisis
C. Cultural Drift, the Old South Giving Way to the New Atlanta of Ambition and Lust
1. Sexual Revolution and Subjugation of Women as Trophies
2. Social Corruption and Discourses of Political Correctness Blighting the South
3. Proclaimed Realist Writer Verging on Postmodernism
Chapter 4 I am Charlotte Simmons
-- Self Caught in the Hooking Up Culture
A. Hooking Up Culture in the New Millennium
1. Youth at the End of the Century
2. Post-feminism and Active Girlhood
3. Pressure From Peer Influence and Collective Behavior
4. Consuming Youth and Gender in Popular Culture
B. Charlotte's Pursuit for Status: Free Will Succumbing to Prevailing Values on Campus
1. Status System on Campus: a Chimp Colony with Alpha Males
2. Free Will Against A Neuroscientific Understanding of Self
C. Wolfe Losing Faith in Nietzsche's Overman
Chapter 5 Conclusion
Bibliography
Index