English 252 Kitchens: American Literature II

Numerous tomes have been written about Jack London's The Call of the Wild. This is the first one to talk about the dog Buck's perspective in the novel. Beierl takes an empathetic approach to discussing the domestication of Buck in the story to use this novel as a platform for building empathetic relationships with animals. Very few scholarly works discuss literature from the perspective of an animal, and this one attempts to bring a fresh perspective at an old novel by theorizing empathetically with the characters, which plays a critical role in narrative-based responses to the novel. 

One of the most beloved writers of all time, Jack London is best remembered for his tales of adventure, such as White Fang and The Call of the Wild. Jack London paints a well-rounded picture of London's short, intrepid life, his prolific writings, his unusually clear and direct portrayal ofpeople of different races, and his struggles with writing. The book includes excerpts, photographs, maps, suggestions for further reading, and a list of places to visit.

Mamie Smith's pathbreaking 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues" set the pop music world on fire, inaugurating a new African American market for "race records." Not long after, such records also brought black blues performance to an expanding international audience. A century later, the mainstream blues world has transformed into a multicultural and transnational melting pot, taking the music far beyond the black southern world of its origins. But not everybody is happy about that. If there's "No black. No white. Just the blues," as one familiar meme suggests, why do some blues people hear such pronouncements as an aggressive attempt at cultural appropriation and an erasure of traumatic histories that lie deep in the heart of the music? Then again, if "blues is black music," as some performers and critics insist, what should we make of the vibrant global blues scene, with its all-comers mix of nationalities and ethnicities? In Whose Blues?, award-winning blues scholar and performer Adam Gussow confronts these challenging questions head-on. Using blues literature and history as a cultural anchor, Gussow defines, interprets, and makes sense of the blues for the new millennium. Drawing on the blues tradition's major writers including W. C. Handy, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Amiri Baraka, and grounded in his first-person knowledge of the blues performance scene, Gussow's thought-provoking book kickstarts a long overdue conversation.

" Langston Hughes was one of the most important American writers of his generation and one of the most versatile, producing poetry, fiction, drama, and autobiography. In this innovative study, R. Baxter Miller explores Hughes's life and art in an effort to broaden our appreciation of his contribution to American letters.

"Margaret Atwood: Feminism and Fiction" takes a new look at the complex relationship between Margaret Atwood's fiction and feminist politics. Examining in detail the concerns and choices of an author who has frequently been termed feminist but has famously rejected the label on many occasions, this book traces the influences of feminism in Atwood's work and simultaneously plots moments of dissent or debate. Fiona Tolan presents a clear and detailed study of the first eleven novels of one of Canada's most prominent authors. Each chapter can be read as an individual textual analysis, whilst the chronological structure provides a fascinating insight into the shifting concerns of a popular and influential author over a period of nearly thirty-five years.

A prolific writer and versatile social critic, Canadian novelist and poet Margaret Atwood has recently published Bluebeard’s Egg (short stories), Interlunar (poetry), and The Handmaid’s Tale a critically acclaimed best-selling novel. This international collection of essays evaluates the complete body of her work—both the acclaimed fiction and the innovative poetry. The critics represented here—American, Australian, and Canadian—address Atwood’s handling of such themes as feminism, ecology, the gothic novel, and the political relationship between Canada and the United States. The essays on Atwood’s novels introduce the general reader to her development as a writer, as she matures from a basically subjective, poetic vision, seen in Surfacing and The Edible Woman, to an increasingly engaged, political stance, exemplified by The Handmaid’s Tale. Other essays examine Atwood’s poetry, from her transformation of the Homeric model to her criticisms of the United States’ relationship with Canada. The last two critical essays offer a unique view of Atwood through an investigation of her use of the concept of shamanism and through a presentation of eight of her vivid watercolors. The volume ends with Atwood presenting her own views in an interview with Jan Garden Castro and in a conversation between Atwood and students at the University of Tampa, Florida.

Emerging from a matrix of Old Left, black nationalist, and bohemian ideologies and institutions, African American artists and intellectuals in the 1960s coalesced to form the Black Arts Movement, the cultural wing of the Black Power Movement. In this comprehensive analysis, James Smethurst examines the formation of the Black Arts Movement and demonstrates how it deeply influenced the production and reception of literature and art in the United States through its negotiations of the ideological climate of the Cold War, decolonization, and the civil rights movement. Taking a regional approach, Smethurst examines local expressions of the nascent Black Arts Movement, a movement distinctive in its geographical reach and diversity, while always keeping the frame of the larger movement in view. The Black Arts Movement, he argues, fundamentally changed American attitudes about the relationship between popular culture and "high" art and dramatically transformed the landscape of public funding for the arts.