International specialists explore magazines and newspapers from a sociocultural perspective allowing us to understand the relation between its audience and these much beloved friends from the late seventeenth to the twenty first century. A must-read for academic and interested readers who wish to explore new and relevant ways to analyse periodicals.

The American short story has always been characterized by exciting aesthetic innovations and an immense range of topics. This handbook offers students and researchers a comprehensive introduction to the multifaceted genre with a special focus on recent developments due to the rise of new media. Part I provides systematic overviews of significant contexts ranging from historical-political backgrounds, short story theories developed by writers, print and digital culture, to current theoretical approaches and canon formation. Part II consists of 35 paired readings of representative short stories by eminent authors, charting major steps in the evolution of the American short story from its beginnings as an art form in the early nineteenth century up to the digital age. The handbook examines historically, methodologically, and theoretically the coming together of the enduring narrative practice of compression and concision in American literature. It offers fresh and original readings relevant to studying the American short story and shows how the genre performs American culture.

"Worlding America" explores the circulation of short narratives in the early Americas through a combination of neglected primary materials and scholarly commentary. Building on recent reconsiderations of American literature in light of transnational and hemispheric approaches, it follows the migration of stories from various backgrounds and demonstrates how forms and themes developed in a new literary market that spanned the Atlantic world.
While short narratives prior to 1800 have been largely excluded from critical discussions as well as anthologies, they give insight into the conditions of publishing and writing as well as the demand for brief, entertaining pieces that was met by a wide variety of sources, including sermons, letters, diaries, travelogues, and, eventually, magazines and newspapers. Breaking with traditional concepts of period, authorship, and genre, "Worlding America" groups the different types of narratives it anthologizes according to key subject areas such as "Life Writing," "Female Agency," or the "Cultures of Print." Each section is introduced by a headnote that explains relevant historical and literary developments, situating each narrative in its cultural context and providing its publication history. Suggestions for further reading will also be appreciated by scholars and students wishing to pursue research in these underrepresented forms.

In den angloamerikanischen wie auch in den deutschsprachigen Kulturwissenschaften haben sich in den letzten Jahren kontextorientierte Forschungsparadigmen etabliert. Trotz oder gerade wegen der Vielfalt der Publikationen in diesem Feld ist eine terminologische Unscharfe eingetreten, die die Beitrage des Bandes kritisch bilanzieren. Der Band bezweckt die in den Kulturwissenschaften vorherrschende Leitdifferenz zwischen Text und Kontext aus transdisziplinarer Perspektive neu zu sichten."