What can there possibly be left to say about . . .? This common litany, resonant both in and outside of academia, reflects a growing sense that the number of subjects and authors appropriate for literary study is rapidly becoming exhausted. Take heart, admonishes Richard Kopley in this dynamic new anthology--for this is decidedly not the case. While generations of literary study have unquestionably covered much ground in analyzing canonical writers, many aspects of even the most well-known authors--both their lives and their work-- remain underexamined. Among the authors discussed are T. S. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Faulkner, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, Richard Wright, Edith Wharton, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Zora Neale Hurston, Henry James, Willa Cather, Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, and Mark Twain.

Essayists survey the recent thought and research concerning outstanding authors, trends, and movements in American literature.

..". an important and valuable collection... the essays are at the cutting edge of post modernism." -- Maggie Humm, Women's Studies International Forum "This well-written, carefully edited anthology provides an excellent overview of the thicket of contemporary feminist literary theory... No library should be without it." -- Kathryn Allen Rabuzzi, Syracuse University, Religious Studies Review "In all, this is a rich and varied collection." -- Journal of Modern Literature Explores the aesthetic and political issues inherent in feminist critical theory and practice. Contributors include Shari Benstock, Elaine Showalter, Nina Baym, Paula A. Treichler, Jane Marcus, Josephine Donovan, Judith Kegan Gardiner, Judith Newton, Lillian S. Robinson, Nina Auerbach, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Hortense J. Spillers, and Susan Stanford Friedman.

Fifty-one essays by writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as critics and academics such as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. examine the central texts and arguments in African American literary theory from the 1920s through the present. Contributions are organized chronologically beginning with the rise of a black aesthetic criticism, through the Black Arts Movement, feminism, structuralism and poststructuralism, queer theory, and cultural studies. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

The Crossroads of American History and Literature collects two decades' worth of the best-known essays of Philip F. Gura. Beginning with a definitive overview of studies of colonial literature, Gura ranges through such subjects in colonial American history as the intellectual life of the Connecticut River Valley, Cotton Mather's understanding of political leadership, and the religious upheavals of the Great Awakening. In the nineteenth century, he visits such varied topics as the history of print culture in rural communities, the philological interests of the Transcendentalist Elizabeth Peabody, the craft and business of the early Amerian music trades, and Thoreau's interest in exploration literature and in the Native American. Displaying remarkable sophistication in a variety of fields that, taken together, constitute the heart of American Studies, this collection illustrates the complexity of American cultural history.

In Search of a Model for African-American Drama, is a comparative study of how these three dramatists seek and devise new models to address the specific conditions of Blacks in America. Each writer relies on a different approach, each powerful, yet apparently contradictory. The author examines the dramatists' work in detail, exploring common and contrasting themes and models.

This volume, growing out of the celebrated turn toward history in literary criticism, showcases some of the best new historical work being done today in textual theory, literary history, and cultural criticism. The collection brings together for the first time key representativesfrom various schools of historicist scholarship, including leading critics whose work has helped define new historicism. The essays illuminate literary periods ranging from Anglo-Saxon to postmodern, a variety of literary texts that includes The Siege of Thebes, Macbeth, The Jazz Singer, and The Chosen Place, the Timeless People, and central issues that have marked new historicism: power, ideology, textuality, othering, marginality, exile, and liberation. The contributors are Janet Aikins, Lawrence Buell, Ralph Cohen, Margaret Ezell, Stephen Greenblatt, Terence Hoagwood, Jerome McGann, Robert Newman, Katherine O'Keeffe, Lee Patterson, Michael Rogin, Edward Said, and Hortense Spillers. The editors' introduction situates the various essays within contemporary criticism and explores the multiple, contestatory issues at stake within the historicist enterprise.

American Literary Criticism Since the 1930s fully updates Vincent B. Leitch’s classic book, American Literary Criticism from the 30s to the 80s following the development of the American academy right up to the present day. Updated throughout and with a brand new chapter, this second edition: provides a critical history of American literary theory and practice, discussing the impact of major schools and movements examines the social and cultural background to literary research, considering the role of key theories and practices provides profiles of major figures and influential texts, outlining the connections among theorists presents a new chapter on developments since the 1980s, including discussions of feminist, queer, postcolonial and ethnic criticism. Comprehensive and engaging, this book offers a crucial overview of the development of literary studies in American universities, and a springboard to further research for all those interested in the development and study of Literature.

A Companion to American Literary Studies addresses the most provocative questions, subjects, and issues animating the field. Essays provide readers with the knowledge and conceptual tools for understanding American literary studies as it is practiced today, and chart new directions for the future of the subject. Offers up-to-date accounts of major new critical approaches to American literary studies Presents state-of-the-art essays on a full range of topics central to the field Essays explore critical and institutional genealogies of the field, increasingly diverse conceptions of American literary study, and unprecedented material changes such as the digital revolution A unique anthology in the field, and an essential resource for libraries, faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates