This volume explores the confluences between two types of literature in contemporary America: the novel and the epic. It analyses the tradition of the epic as it has evolved from antiquity, through Joyce to its American manifestations and describes how this tradition has impacted upon contemporary American writing.

This volume explores the confluences between two types of literature in contemporary America: the novel and the epic. It analyses the tradition of the epic as it has evolved from antiquity, through Joyce to its American manifestations, and describes how this tradition has impacted upon contemporary American writing.

Will the twenty-first century be the next American Century? Will American power and ideas dominate the globe in the coming years? Or is the prestige of the United States likely to crumble beneath the pressure of new international challenges? This ground-breaking book explores the changing patterns of American thought and culture at the dawn of the new millennium, when the world's richest nation has never been more powerful or more controversial. It brings together some of the most eminent North American and European thinkers to investigate the crucial issues and challenges facing the United States during the early years of our new century. From the subterranean political shifts beneath the electoral landscape to the latest biomedical advances, from the literary response to 9/11 to the rise of reality television, this book explores the political, social and cultural contours of contemporary American life - but it also places the United States within a global narrative of commerce, cultural exchange, international diplomacy, ideological conflict and war. These eighteen new essays address such pressing issues as leadership, foreign policy, propaganda, religion, health, technology, immigration, 9/11 culture and digital media. Searching for the roots of our contemporary concerns, the authors look back to the Clinton years and even earlier periods of twentieth-century American life. But they also look forward to the new horizons of the century to come - to the unanticipated dangers of a global future and to the soaring possibilities of American enterprise and imagination.

An incisive study of modern American literature, casting new light on its origins and themes. Exploring canonical American writers such as Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner alongside less familiar writers like Djuna Barnes and Susan Glaspell, the guide takes readers though a diverse literary landscape. It considers how the rise of the American metropolis contributed to the growth of American modernism; and also examines the ways in which regional writers responded to an accelerated American modernity. Taking in African American modernism, cultural and geographical exile, as well as developments in modern American drama, the guide introduces readers to current critical trends in modernist studies. Key Features *Presents American literary modernism as emerging from a broad intellectual and philosophical landscape *Extends the timeframe, definition and intellectual parameters of American modernism *Provides close critical and contextual analysis of more than thirty American writers and key texts including Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Djuna Barnes's Nightwood, and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land

The terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 have had a profound impact on contemporary American literature and culture. With chapters written by leading scholars, 9/11: Topics in Contemporary North American Literature is a wide-ranging guide to literary responses to the attacks and its aftermath. The book covers the most widely studied texts, from Don DeLillo's Falling Man, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Jonathan Franzen's Freedom to responses in contemporary American poetry and graphic narratives such as Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers. Including annotated guides to further reading, this is an essential guide for students and readers of contemporary American literature.

Philip Roth scholars continue to reflect on what Philip Roth's retirement in 2012 means for the landscape of American literature and what his professed disappearance from the public eye in 2014 would mean for the future consideration of his legacy. This collection seeks to answer those questions in a scholarly way. Composed of eleven original essays written by accomplished scholars in the field of Philip Roth Studies, the collection is both relevant and engaging on three levels: it is the first of its kind to offer a scholarly retrospective of Roth's works and career; it considers Roth within the American literary imagination; and it speculates on Roth's legacy-particularly the enduring quality of his novels that will continue to resonate long after his retirement.

Philip Roth scholars continue to reflect on what Philip Roth's retirement in 2012 means for the landscape of American literature and what his professed disappearance from the public eye in 2014 would mean for the future consideration of his legacy. This collection seeks to answer those questions in a scholarly way. Composed of eleven original essays written by accomplished scholars in the field of Philip Roth Studies, the collection is both relevant and engaging on three levels: it is the first of its kind to offer a scholarly retrospective of Roth's works and career; it considers Roth within the American literary imagination; and it speculates on Roth's legacy-particularly the enduring quality of his novels that will continue to resonate long after his retirement.

Encompassing writers from Edith Wharton, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot to Willa Cather, Theodore Dreiser and Gertrude Stein, American Modernism: Cultural Transactions is a comprehensive and informative companion to the field of American literary modernism. This groundbreaking new book explores the changing patterns of American literary culture in the early years of the 20th century, in the aftermath of the great American Renaissance, when the United States was well on its way to becoming the most economically powerful and culturally influential nation in the world. It brings together some of the most eminent British and European scholars to investigate how the United States's unique cultural position is in fact the by-product of a range of cultural transactions between the United States and Europe, between the visual and the literary arts, and between the economic and aesthetic worlds. And it presents a stunning re-examination of the social, cultural and artistic contours of American modernism, from the impact of a liberal Scottish speaker on T.S. Eliot's considerations of Shakespeare to the generic hybridity of Edith Wharton's writing, from the influence of Oscar Wilde on Hart Crane to the effect of Anglo-European experimentalism on Native American fiction - and much more. Through close textual and archival analysis, backed up with compelling historical insights, these nine new essays explore the nature and limits of American modernism. They address such topical issues as geomodernism, transnationalism and the nature of American identity; they examine the ways writers embraced or rejected the emerging modern world; and they take a fresh look at American literature in the broad context of international modernism.