Contents: 1. The Abdul Rahim I know: a memoir/Ravi Sheorey. 2. The two paradises of the American imagination/Nirmal Selvamony. 3. Eco-critical theory and practice in America/S. Kumaran. 4. The decentered gender in American fiction/N. Natarajan. 5. Paul de Man's deconstruction/A. Joseph Dorairaj. 6. A.R. Ammons' Sphere: a study in Verbal Paradox/S.P. Dhanavel. 7. The epistemology of loss in John Berryman's poetry/George Justine V. 8. Women's autonomy in Adrienne Rich's poetry/Rajeshwar Mittapalli and V. Rajasekhar. 9. Arthur Miller's concept of commitment/G. Gurumurthy. 10. The Marginalized feminine in Tennessee Williams's Plays/L. Saraswathi. 11. Capitalism in David Mamet's Plays/G. Chandralekha Rao. 12. Postmodern humanism in David Mamet's The Cryptogram/M. Renuga. 13. Comedy as catharsis: A study of Neil Simon's Chapter Two/S. Ravindranathan. 14. Focalization in Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener/Felix Moses. 15. Henry James's Daisy Miller: A romantic portrayal/G. Natanam. 16. Disintegration in William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness/M. Suresh Kumar. 17. Violence in John Hawkes's The Cannibal/T. Gangadharan. 18. A reading of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood/P. Geetha. 19. Compromised existence in John Updike's The Music School/A. Santhanalakshmi. 20. Struggle for survival in John Gardner's Mickelsson's Ghosts and Saul Bellow's Herzog/Thummapudi Bharathi. 21. Women in Hemingway's Life and Fiction/Rajyashree Khushu-Lahiri. 22. Mind style in Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea/J. Sundarsingh. 23. Quest for identity in Joan Didion's Fiction/N.L.N. Jayanthi. 24. Apocalyptic environmentalism in Joyce Carol Oates's The Falls/Srirupa Chatterjee. 25. The problem of defining the black womanhood/S. Kannammal. 26. Toward a theory of African American motherhood/Sathyaraj Venkatesan. 27. The poetic world of Maya Angelou/V. Ramasamy. 28. The self-portrait of Maya Angelou/M.H. Mohamed Rafiq. 29. The frustrated and victimized black in Amiri Baraka's Dutchman/Suresh Frederick. 30. Racial relations in Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God/P. Mythily. 31. African American Stereotypes in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man/A. Dastageer and Abdul M. Jinnah. 32. Racial climate in Richard Wright's Native Son/M. Regina Dorothy. 33. The black identity in Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's Jazz/G. Baskaran. 34. Anguish in Toni Morrison's Sula and Alice Walker's The Color Purple/B. Kathiresan. 35. Quest for Chinese identity in Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club/V. Vinod Kumar. 36. Bapsi Sighwa's An American Brat as a female Bildungsroman/C.N. Eswari. 37. Expatriate sensibilities in Bapsi Sidhwa's fiction/Evangeline Manickam. Index.
"This Festschrift volume of 37 essays offers fresh insights into the repertoire of American Literature from the beginnings to the present theoretically as well as practically. Theoretically, it examines what constitutes American imagination geographically, culturally, socially, politically and so on. Practically, the volume undertakes a study of major white, black, and brown (Asian) American writers and their writings, including critical positions. In fact, the essays are organized into these three major categories. Some of the notable topics discussed are ecology, gender deconstruction, paradox, epistemology, autonomy, commitment, capitalism, postmodern humanism, catharsis, focalization, disintegration, violence, existence, quest, apocalypse, woman-hood, motherhood, victim and victor, race, stereotypes, identity, anguish, and intercultural relations. This wide variety of perspectives illumines the critical black holes in American Literature." (jacket)
