Magical realism has become almost synonymous with Latin American fiction, but this way of representing the layered and often contradictory reality of the topsy-turvy, late-capitalist, globalizing world finds equally vivid expression in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. Writers and filmmakers such as Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, Ana Castillo, Julie Dash, Hanif Kureishi, and Salman Rushdie have made brilliant use of magical realism to articulate the trauma of dislocation and the legacies of colonialism that people of color experience in the postcolonial, multiethnic world. This book seeks to redeem and refine the theory of magical realism in U.S. multiethnic and British postcolonial literature and film. Frederick Aldama engages in theoretically sophisticated readings of Ana Castillo's So Far from God, Oscar "Zeta" Acosta's Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Shame, The Satanic Verses, and The Moor's Last Sigh, Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust, and Stephen Frears and Hanif Kureishi's Sammy and Rosie Get Laid. Coining the term "magicorealism" to characterize these works, Aldama not only creates a postethnic critical methodology for enlarging the contact zone between the genres of novel, film, and autobiography, but also shatters the interpretive lens that traditionally confuses the transcription of the real world, where truth and falsity apply, with narrative modes governed by other criteria.

This book examines how Asian American authors since 1945 have deployed the stereotype of Asian American inscrutability in order to re-examine and debunk the stereotype in various ways. By paying special attention to what narrative theorists have regarded as one of the most extraordinary aspects of fiction—its ability to give (or else deny) readers a remarkably detailed knowledge of the inner lives of their characters—this book explores deeply and systematically the specific ways Asian American narratives attribute inscrutable minds to Asian American characters, situating them at various points along a spectrum stretching between alterity and empathy. Ultimately, the book reveals the link between narrative form and larger cultural issues associated with the representation of Asian American minds, and how a nuanced investigation of narrative form can yield insights into the sociocultural embeddedness of Asian American literature under the case studies—insights that would not be available if such formal questions were by passed.

Sympathetic with the new ethnic consciousness, Hollinger argues that the conventional liberal toleration of all established ethnic groups no longer works because it leaves unchallenged the prevailing imbalance of power. Yet the multiculturalist alternative does nothing to stop the fragmenting of American society into competing ethnic enclaves, each concerned primarily with its own well-being. Hollinger argues instead for a new cosmopolitanism, an appreciation of multiple identities -- new cross-cultural affiliations based not on the biologically given but on consent, on the right to emphasize or diminish the significance of one's ethnoracial affiliation. Postethnic America is a bracing reminder of America's universalist promise as a haven for all peoples. While recognizing the Eurocentric narrowness of that older universalism, Hollinger makes a stirring call for a new nationalism. He urges that a democratic nation-state like ours must help bridge the gap between our common fellowship as human beings and the great variety of ethnic and racial groups represented within the United States.

Profiles the life of Sojourner Truth, born a slave and later freed, as she fought for equal rights for African Americans and woman.

Recently, many critics have questioned the idea of universal citizenship by pointing to the racial, class, and gendered exclusions on which the notion of universality rests. Rather than jettison the idea of universal citizenship, however, R. Andrés Guzmán builds on these critiques to reaffirm it especially within the fields of Latina/o and ethnic studies. Beyond conceptualizing citizenship as an outcome of recognition and admittance by the nation-state—in a negotiation for the right to have rights—he asserts that, insofar as universal citizenship entails a forceful entrance into the political from the latter’s foundational exclusions, it emerges at the limits of legality and illegality via a process that exceeds identitarian capture. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis and philosopher Alain Badiou’s notion of “generic politics,” Guzmán advances his argument through close analyses of various literary, cultural, and legal texts that foreground contention over the limits of political belonging. These include the French Revolution, responses to Arizona’s H.B. 2281, the 2006 immigrant rights protests in the United States, the writings of Oscar “Zeta” Acosta, Frantz Fanon’s account of Algeria’s anticolonial struggle, and more. In each case, Guzmán traces the advent of the “citizen” as a collective subject made up of anyone who seeks to radically transform the organizational coordinates of the place in which she or he lives.

In this volume experienced and new college- and university-level teachers will find practical, adaptable strategies for designing or updating courses in western American literature and western studies. Teaching Western American Literature features the latest developments in western literary research and cultural studies as well as pedagogical best practices in course development. Contributors provide practical models and suggestions for courses and assignments while presenting concrete strategies for teaching works both inside and outside the canon. In addition, Brady Harrison and Randi Lynn Tanglen have assembled insights from pioneering western studies instructors with workable strategies and practical advice for translating this often complex material for classrooms from freshman writing courses to graduate seminars. Teaching Western American Literature reflects the cutting edge of western American literary study, featuring diverse approaches allied with women’s, gender, queer, environmental, disability, and Indigenous studies and providing instructors with entrée into classrooms of leading scholars in the field.

Transnational Latina Narratives is the first critical study of its kind to examine twenty-first-century Latina narratives by female authors of diverse Latin American heritages based in the U.S. Heredia s comparative perspective on gender, race and migrations between Latin America and the U.S. demonstrates the changing national landscape that needs to accommodate an ever-growing Latino/a presence. This book draws on the work of Denise Chávez, Sandra Cisneros, Marta Moreno Vega, Angie Cruz, and Marie Arana, as well as a diverse blend of popular culture. Heredia s thought-provoking insights seek to empower the representation of women who are transnational ambassadors in modern trans-American literature.

This study investigates the richly diverse but integrated semiotic potential of storytelling. Unlike other interdisciplinary approaches to narrative studies which have privileged the study of words in storytelling, this unique collection provides a much needed analysis of how narrative operates using combinations of visual, typographic, aural, gestural and haptic resources. Although both multimodal theory and narrative studies have been invigorated by a variety of theoretical approaches, this volume seeks to avoid a single dominant paradigm. Instead, the contributors use literary criticism, linguistics and new media frameworks in a series of critical studies that are directly engaged with a range of multimodal stories. The contributors analyze works that include oral accounts of personal experience, opera, cartoons, print literature and new media forms of storytelling such as experimental digital fiction and fanfiction.

Contemporary Native Fiction: Toward a Narrative Poetics of Survivance analyzes paradigmatic works of contemporary Native American/First Nations literary fiction using the tools of narrative theory. Each chapter is read through the lens of a narrative theory – structuralist narratology, feminist narratology, rhetorical narratology, and unnatural narratology – in order to demonstrate how the formal structure of these narratives engage the political issues raised in the text. Additionally, each chapter shows how the inclusion of Native American/First Nations-authored narratives productively advance the theoretical work project of those narrative theories. This book offers a broad survey of possible means by which narrative theory and critical race theories can productively work together and is key reading for students and researchers working in this area.

Critiquing Postmodernism in Contemporary Discourses of Race challenges the critical emphasis on otherness in treatments of race in literary and cultural studies. Sue J. Kim deftly argues that this treatment not only perpetuates narrow identity politics, but obscures the political and economic structures that shape issues of race in literary studies. Kim s revelatory book shows how reading authors through their identity ends up neglecting both complex historical contexts and aesthetic forms. This comparative study calls for a reconsideration of the bases for critical engagement and a reading ethics that melds the best of historicist and formalist approaches to literature.