Books in the Modern American Literature series

The alleged affair between Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, and his slave Sally Hemings was proven as a fact by DNA analysis in 1998. This book examines how African American writers have depicted the issues of race, gender, and identity for Sally Hemings and her descendants in modern and postmodern novels.

The Nation of Islam and Black Consciousness pariticipates in the scholarly discussions about the origins and formation of the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which rarely give credit to the role of the Nation of Islam's teachings in the emergence of the movement and in shaping the subjects and themes of its literary works.

American Realist Fictions of Marriage intervenes in current critical debates in American literary realism by showing how realism functions as a mode of narration for fictive constructions of marriage and the race, gender, and class upheavals these depictions of marriage represent.

Lawrence E. Hussman examines selected novels and short stories of fifty major American fiction writers from Stephen Crane to Junot Diaz. The reader will also find references to American politics, history, and popular culture in the book.

Illustrates that the descent to the underworld is the single most important myth in Pynchon's work, conferring shape and significance upon each of his novels. This book offers a perspective on postmodernism, which is characterized by ludic syncretism - the playful synthesis of myths from a variety of cultures.

Princess stories of the early 2000s are compelling in that they tensely balance romance and feminist assumptions. Suitable for those interested in folklore studies, feminist studies, children's literature, Disney studies, psychology, sociology, or theories of child development, this title examines the fictional princess.

Drawing upon methods used in literary analysis and textual interpretation, this book proposes a new reading of Stephen King's fiction as a literary reflection on the artistic identity of the writer and on writing and shows that horrific descriptions do not necessarily exclude metafiction.

The Game as It Is Played comprises the best of Donald Pizer's essays on Theodore Dreiser. The essays explore several of the more controversial areas of Dreiser scholarship, including his late conversion to communism, his anti-Semitism, and the text of Sister Carrie.

Proposes readings of justice in contemporary American literature. This book examines contemporary writers like Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison. It concludes by observing that justice in contemporary American life is not about closure, but is an open-ended practice of human action, a theory that corresponds to postmodern theories of narrative.

Playing with Expectations: Postmodern Narrative Choices and the African American Novel explores a merging of works by African American novelists to promote critical acceptance of postmodern literature and advance the legitimacy and usefulness of postmodern literary techniques.

Autobiography, Ecology, and the Well-Placed Self

Many readers imagine Gavin Stevens as character similar to William Faulkner in his apocryphal Yoknapatawpha, and while Stevens was once considered reliable Faulknerian spokesperson, ample scholarship has demonstrated that he functions as far more than the author's mouthpiece. This book defines Stevens' role and examines scope of his influence.

Upends Faulkner biography, scholarship, and criticism by tracing to Honore de Balzac in William Faulkner's oeuvre.

Offers an ecocritical reading of the "Watson Trilogy" which draws together themes Matthiessen has been exploring both in his fiction and nonfiction. In this book, the study argues that his ecological imagination comes from his experience as a novelist, naturalist, environmentalist, social activist, and a student of Zen.

A study of African American writer Toni Morrison's work. Beginning with The Bluest Eye in 1970 and continuing through her 2012 novel Home, it describes Morrison as an inherently original novelist who was shaped throughout her career by her role within families.

Don DeLillo is a phenomenologist of the contemporary technoscape and an ecologist of our new kind of natural habitat. This book examines the variety of modes in which DeLillo's fictions illustrate the technologically mediated confluence of his human subjects and the field of cultural objects in which they discover themselves.

By framing Ford's contemporary representations of masculinity within a more general context of American literature, this book reveals how his texts continue along a trajectory of earlier American fiction while they also re-examine masculinity in complex ways.

Explores the symbol of the wounded and scarred female body in selected postmodern, multiethnic American women's novels. This book emphasizes the different and nuanced forms of oppression each woman faces.

This book critically discusses the works of two seemingly different and unconnected playwrights, Lillian Hellman and August Wilson. By analyzing the black presence in Hellman and its counterpart white presence in Wilson, it exposes interracial boundaries and illuminates the architecture of the new American citizen through the examination of stereotypes, the revelation of sources of ongoing racial tension, and suggested solutions. Their dramas rewrite history to reflect their political activism and espouse a shared value system that demands responsible action, equitable reward, and recognition of women and African Americans as equally valuable citizens of American society.

From Richard Wright to Toni Morrison: Ethics in Modern and Postmodern American Narrative studies the relationship of literature to contemporary ethical problems. Focusing on southern and African American writers, this book employs theoretical approaches from ethnicity studies, regional criticism, and postcolonial theory. It intends to insert a reading of ethics into the critical study of fictional and nonfictional narratives by Richard Wright, James Agee, Flannery O¿Connor, Ernest J. Gaines, Walker Percy, Richard Ford, Toni Morrison, and other modern and postmodern American writers.