Memory And Cultural Politics: New Approaches to American Ethnic Literatures

The fifteen previously unpublished essays collected in this volume address the work of writers across the spectrum of American literature, including Chicano/a, Chinese American, African American, Jewish American, Arab American, Native American, Japanese Canadian, and Caribbean American. They cover a wide range of topics and pay special attention to the generation and/or maintenance of cultural identity. Together, they reflect the range and complexity of issues surrounding memory and cultural real and imagines pasts; personal, generational and collective histories; remember pain, nostalgia and yearning; region and folklore; work, identity, and authenticity; storytelling and postmodernism; the politics of remembering and forgetting.