The statement, "The Civil Rights Movement changed America," though true, has become something of a cliche. Civil rights in the White Literary Imagination seeks to determine how, exactly, the Civil Rig
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, American authors pioneered a mode of musical writing that quite literally resounded beyond the printed page. Novels gained soundtracks, poetry co
During the Cold War, Ellis Island no longer served as the largest port of entry for immigrants, but as a prison for holding aliens the state wished to deport. The government criminalized those it cons
Co-published by Routledge and Edition SynapseAlthough there are any number of single-volume anthologies on individual writers and movements (e.g. the Harlem Renaissance), African American Writing is t
"The monograph engages the ways African American authors have shifted, recycled, and reinvented the conjure woman in twentieth century fiction, constructing a historiography of the conjure woman as a
Colleen Glenney Boggs puts animal representation at the center of the making of the liberal American subject. Concentrating on the formative and disruptive presence of animals in the writings of Frede
Consulting a diverse archive of literary texts, Colleen Glenney Boggs places animal representation at the center of the making of the liberal American subject. From the bestiality trials of the seve
In the United States miscegenation is not merely a subject of literature and popular culture. It is in many ways the foundation of contemporary imaginary community. The Romance of Race examines the ro
Harlem and the Lower East Side are two neighborhoods that evoke not only a rich if contested history, but also a particular racial narrative. Indeed, these spaces one downtown and one uptown on Manhat
"This book examines popular representations of biracial women of black and white descent in the United States, focusing on novels, television, music, and film. Although the emphasis is on the 1990s, t
Often thought of as the quintessential home or the Eden from which humanity has fallen, the natural world has long been a popular object of nostalgic narratives. In "Reclaiming Nostalgia, " Jennifer L
Often thought of as the quintessential home or the Eden from which humanity has fallen, the natural world has long been a popular object of nostalgic narratives. InReclaiming Nostalgia, Jennifer Ladin
This is the first anthology of its kind in two ways: first, it points to a subtle shift away from privileging magical realism as a monolithic category in the literatures of the Americas and second, it
Tracing the transatlantic influence of the Irish Revival upon the Southern Renaissance, this work explores how the latter looked to the former for guidance, artistic innovation, and models for self-in
This book discusses the significance of late twentieth century and early twenty first century American fiction written in response to the AIDS crisis and interrogates how sexual identity is depicted a
Just as Africa and the West have traditionally fit into binaries of Darkness/Enlightenment, Savage/Modern, Ugly/Beautiful, and Ritual/Art, among others, much of Western cultural production rests upon
In The Empire Abroad and the Empire at Home, John Cullen Gruesser establishes that African American writers at the turn of the twentieth century responded extensively and idiosyncratically to overseas
In The Empire Abroad and the Empire at Home, John Cullen Gruesser establishes that African American writers at the turn of the twentieth century responded extensively and idiosyncratically to overseas
During the Progressive Era, the United States regularly suspended its own laws to regulate racialized populations. Judges and administrators relied on the rhetoric of sovereignty to justify such legal practices, while in American popular culture, sovereignty helped authors coin tropes that have become synonymous with American exceptionalism today. In this book, Andrew Hebard challenges the notion of sovereignty as a 'state of exception' in American jurisprudence and literature at the turn of the twentieth century. Hebard explores how literary trends such as romance and realism helped conventionalize, and thereby sanction, the federal government's use of sovereignty in a range of foreign and domestic policy matters, including the regulation of overseas colonies, immigration, Native American lands, and extra-legal violence in the American South. Weaving historiography with close readings of Mark Twain, the Western, and other hallmarks of Progressive Era literature, Hebard's study offers
Anyone who has seen a horror film or read a Stephen King novel is familiar with gothic tropes: dark villains who never tire of chasing hapless maidens; supernatural monsters; heroes who are sometimes
