This extensive chronology of US women's writing and social history catalogues authors of fiction and nonfiction across a wide range of genres - novels, poetry, cookbooks, songs - and describes the events from world-transforming to everyday occurences when these works were produced. This invaluable resource is a celebration of the many forms of works - written and social, tangible and intangible - produced by American women.

Outstanding, in-depth scholarship by renowned literary critics; great starting point for students seeking an introduction to the theme and the critical discussions surrounding it. Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior: Memoir of a Girlhood Among Ghosts is, according to the Modern Language Association, the most taught text on U.S. campuses, featured in Literature, Asian American Studies, Asian Studies, Women's Studies, and Anthropology, as well as other departments. Coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of publication of The Woman Warrior, this volume features international scholars revisiting long-standing debates about authenticity, genre, and identity in the text, as well as pushing forward into little explored contexts, such as transnationalism, mythopoesis, diaspora, and relational self-hood. Additional essays compare Kingston's masterwork to other key ethnic American writings by authors such as Amy Tan, Maya Angelou, and Lan Cao.

The cultural diversity of the United States makes it impossible to describe American identity as homogenous or monolithic. The sense of belonging to multiple cultures and its relationship to identity are central concerns in literary works by African, Native, Asian, Latino/a, and other ethnic Americans. While some prioritize one culture over another, others emphasize the space in between, to insist on a balance between the two, or to express a feeling of being in-between, or the inability to participate in either side, as so brilliantly evoked in Sui Sin Far's description: "I give my right hand to the Occidentals and my left to the Orientals, hoping that between them they will not utterly destroy the insignificant `connecting link.'" In multicultural America, identity can be complicated, confusing, even frustrating while at the same time inspiring new perspectives, creativity, and a rich source of pride. This volume features studies of works as diverse as Sherman Alexie's National Book Award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Gish Jen's Mona in the Promised Land, and the lesser known but equally powerful Real Women Have Curves by Josefina Lopez. Also offered are essays exploring cultural and historical contexts including one by Annette Harris Powell on the changing politics of hyphenation in the United States and its literature over the course of the 20th century