Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates

Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates

Author: Mary Jo Bona

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-16

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 0791481751

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This groundbreaking collection reinvigorates the debate over the inclusion of multiethnic literature in the American literary canon. While multiethnic literature has earned a place in the curriculum on many large campuses, it is still a controversial topic at many others, as recent campus and corporate revivals of The Great Books attest. Many still perceive multiethnic literature as being governed by ideological and political issues, perpetuating a false distinction between highbrow "literary" texts and multiethnic works. Through historical overviews and textual analyses, the contributors not only argue for the aesthetic validity of multiethnic literature, but also examine the innovative ways in which multiethnic literature is taught and critiqued. The following questions are also addressed: Who and what determines literary value? What role do scholars, students, the reading public, book awards, and/or publishers play in affirming literary value? Taken together, these essays underscore the necessity for maintaining vibrant conversations about the place of multiethnic literature both inside and outside the academy.


A Companion to Multiethnic Literature of the United States

A Companion to Multiethnic Literature of the United States

Author: Gary Totten

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2024-04-01

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 1119652510

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Provides the most comprehensive collection of scholarship on the multiethnic literature of the United States A Companion to the Multiethnic Literature of the United States is the first in-depth reference work dedicated to the histories, genres, themes, cultural contexts, and new directions of American literature by authors of varied ethnic backgrounds. Engaging multiethnic literature as a distinct field of study, this unprecedented volume brings together a wide range of critical and theoretical approaches to offer analyses of African American, Latinx, Native American, Asian American, Jewish American, and Arab American literatures, among others. Chapters written by a diverse panel of leading contributors explore how multi-ethnic texts represent racial, ethnic, and other identities, center the lives and work of the marginalized and oppressed, facilitate empathy with the experiences of others, challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, and other hateful rhetoric, and much more. Informed by recent and leading-edge methodologies within the field, the Companion examines how theoretical approaches to multiethnic literature such as cultural studies, queer studies, ecocriticism, diaspora studies, and posthumanism inform literary scholarship, pedagogy, and curricula in the US and around the world. Explores the national, international, and transnational contexts of US ethnic literature Addresses how technology and digital access to archival materials are impacting the study, reception, and writing of multiethnic literature Discusses how recent developments in critical theory impact the reading and interpretation of multiethnic US literature Highlights significant themes and major critical trends in genres including science fiction, drama and performance, literary nonfiction, and poetry Includes coverage of multiethnic film, history, and culture as well as newer art forms such as graphic narrative and hip-hop Considers various contexts in multiethnic literature such as politics and activism, immigration and migration, and gender and sexuality A Companion to the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States is an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers studying all aspects of the subject


Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom

Race in the Multiethnic Literature Classroom

Author: Cristina Stanciu

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2024-09-10

Total Pages: 515

ISBN-13: 0252047591

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The contemporary rethinking and relearning of history and racism has sparked creative approaches for teaching the histories and representations of marginalized communities. Cristina Stanciu and Gary Totten edit a collection that illuminates these ideas for a variety of fields, areas of education, and institutional contexts. The authors draw on their own racial and ethnic backgrounds to examine race and racism in the context of addressing necessary and often difficult classroom conversations about race, histories of exclusion, and racism. Case studies, reflections, and personal experiences provide guidance for addressing race and racism in the classroom. In-depth analysis looks at attacks on teaching Critical Race Theory and other practices for studying marginalized histories and voices. Throughout, the contributors shine a light on how a critical framework focused on race advances an understanding of contemporary and historical US multiethnic literatures for students around the world and in all fields of study. Contributors: Kristen Brown, Nancy Carranza, Luis Cortes, Marilyn Edelstein, Naomi Edwards, Joanne Lipson Freed, Yadira Gamez, Lauren J. Gantz, Jennifer Ho, Shermaine M. Jones, Norell Martinez, Sarah Minslow, Crystal R. Pérez, Kevin Pyon, Emily Ruth Rutter, Ariel Santos, and C. Anneke Snyder


Canon Vs. Culture

Canon Vs. Culture

Author: Jan Groak

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-06-17

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1134818092

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Canon Vs. Culture explores the consequences of one of the main educational shifts of the last quarter century-- the changes from academic inquiry conducted through a selected list of accepted authorities to an investigation of the cultural operations of an entire society.


Crossing the Mainstream

Crossing the Mainstream

Author: Eileen Iscoff Oliver

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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Intended to help literature teachers examine ways in which the traditional canon can be expanded to include diversity in curricular choices, this book invites readers to work together to find new and better ways to introduce an ever-changing student body to what has heretofore been either unacknowledged or undervalued. The book is divided into three sections. Part 1, "Multicultural Literature for Whom?" develops a rationale for expanding the canon to include multicultural literature in every student's experience and also confronts the issue of censorship. Part 2, "Curricular Challenges: Beyond Eurocentric Values," begins the task of cataloging the multitude of literary works that might be included in the new repertoire and also explores the process of learning a different kind of critical analysis. This section of the book also provides comprehensive bibliographies of African American, Asian American, Jewish, Latino, Native American, and cross-cultural literatures, as well as bibliographies of literature addressing emotional/mental and physical disabilities, homelessness, homosexuality, older adults, teenage suicide, and Vietnam veterans. Finally, Part 3, "Teaching Strategies for Multicultural Literature," gives examples of how multicultural works can be incorporated into literature courses. Also included are discussions of incorporating multicultural perspectives within composition classes, assessing student writing, and making interdisciplinary connections in teaching multicultural literature. (NKA)


Italian America

Italian America

Author: Margherita Ganeri

Publisher: Mimesis

Published: 2015-09-17T00:00:00+02:00

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 8857532178

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This book offers to the reader a tool to address the still largely uncharted territory of contemporary literature of migration. In addition to presenting and commenting on the production of the prolific writer Helen Barolini, the author Margherita Ganeri has a further ambition: to investigate the question that runs through the debate on the relationship between literary writing and socio-cultural groups, namely the possibility to define literature, and in particular Italian American literature, on the basis of ethnicity. The book includes a preface by Melania G. Mazzucco and an exclusive excerpt of Helen Barolini’s forthcoming Visits.


Reading the Canon

Reading the Canon

Author: Philipp Löffler

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 470

ISBN-13: 3825367207

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‘Reading the Canon’ explores the relation between the production of literary value and the problem of periodization, tracing how literary tastes, particular reader communities, and sites of literary learning shape the organization of literature in historical perspective. Rather than suggesting a political critique of the canon, this book shows that the production of literary relevance and its tacit hierarchies of value are necessary consequences of how reading and writing are organized as social practices within different fields of literary activity. ‘Reading the Canon’ offers a comprehensive theoretical account of the conundrums still defining contemporary debates about literary value; the book also features a series of historically-inflected author studies—from classics, such as Shakespeare and Thomas Pynchon, to less likely figures, such as John Neal and Owen Johnson—that illustrate how the idea of literary relevance has been appropriated throughout history and across a variety of national and transnational literary institutions.


American Literature in Transition, 1980–1990

American Literature in Transition, 1980–1990

Author: D. Quentin Miller

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2017-12-28

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 1108246516

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History has not been kind to the 1980s. The decade is often associated with absurd fashion choices, neo-Conservatism in the Reagan/Bush years, the AIDS crisis, Wall Street ethics, and uninspired television, film, and music. Yet the literature of the 1980s is undeniably rich and lasting. American Literature in Transition, 1980–1990 seeks to frame some of the decade's greatest achievements such as Toni Morrison's monumental novel Beloved and to consider some of the trends that began in the 1980s and developed thereafter, including the origins of the graphic novel, prison literature, and the opening of multiculturalism vis-à-vis the 'canon wars'. This volume argues not only for the importance of 1980s American literature, but also for its centrality in understanding trends and trajectories in all contemporary literature against the broader background of culture. This volume serves as both an introduction and a deep consideration of the literary culture of our most maligned decade.


Handbook of Anglophone World Literatures

Handbook of Anglophone World Literatures

Author: Stefan Helgesson

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-09-07

Total Pages: 589

ISBN-13: 3110583186

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The Handbook of Anglophone World Literatures is the first globally comprehensive attempt to chart the rich field of world literatures in English. Part I navigates different usages of the term ‘world literature’ from an historical point of view. Part II discusses a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to world literature. This is also where the handbook’s conceptualisation of ‘Anglophone world literatures’ – in the plural – is developed and interrogated in juxtaposition with proximate fields of inquiry such as postcolonialism, translation studies, memory studies and environmental humanities. Part III charts sociological approaches to Anglophone world literatures, considering their commodification, distribution, translation and canonisation on the international book market. Part IV, finally, is dedicated to the geographies of Anglophone world literatures and provides sample interpretations of literary texts written in English.