Writing and America (Crosscurrents)

Crosscurrents is a new series which has grown directly out of exciting developments in higher education. The move towards modular courses amongst students and the evolution of interdisciplinary work at all levels of intellectual inquiry have expanded the horizons of the old subject areas. This series is aimed to show how English Studies is meeting the challenge of these developments by drawing upon the discourses of history, politics, race and gender studies in particular. Subjects range from those which are well established within the prevailing structure of English Studies to new and unusual areas which have emerged directly out of innovative interdisciplinary work.
Writing and America provides a volume of interdisciplinary essays by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic. It reflects the various dialogues and tensions between all kinds of writing that go into making America not only a geographical but also a psychological entity; fiction, poetry, travel writing, literary criticism, history, journalism, legal and political documentation. Contributions comprise special case studies of writers such as James Fenimore Cooper and William Carlos Williams, and essays on more general topics, including colonial notions of America as the promised land, the discourses of nationhood in the new Republic, and the sense of nationhood in American historiography and in the formation of the American canon. The collection also questions the notion of stable nationhood by focusing on writers until recently beyond the canon, such as native, black and feminist writers. Expositions of material such as 'Dances with Wolves' and Bruce Springsteen's 'Born in the USA' help the student to make important connections between American contemporary culture, history and literary traditions.