Jane Tompkins, a renowned literature professor and award-winning author, thought she knew what reading was until, struck by a debilitating illness, she finds herself reading day and night because it i
"Here one of our leading literary scholars looks back on her own life in the classroom, and discovers how much of what she learned there needs to be unlearned. Jane Tompkins’ memoir shows how her educ
A leading figure in the debate over the literary canon, Jane Tompkins was one of the first to point to the ongoing relevance of popular women's fiction in the 19th century, long overlooked or scorned
With contributions by David Bleich, Jonathan Culler, Stanley Fish, Walker Gibson, Norman N. Holland, Wolfgang Iser, Walter Benn Michaels, Georges Poulet, Gerald Prince, and Michael Riffaterre.
Investigates the Western, a homegrown American literary genre, explaining the significance of its major elements: cattle, horses, desert landscapes, violence, death, and heroism, and contends that Wes
When Miss Milner announces her passion for her guardian, a Catholic priest, she breaks through the double barrier of his religious vocation and 18th-century British society's standards of proper woma
