Jared Gardner

In Master Plots, Jared Gardner examines the tangled intersection of racial and national discourses in early American narrative. While it is well known that the writers of the early national period were preoccupied with differentiating their work from European models, Gardner argues that the national literature of the United States was equally motivated by the desire to differentiate white Americans from blacks and Indians. To achieve these ends, early American writers were drawn to fantasies of an "American race," and an American literature came to be defined not only by its desire for cultural uniqueness but also by its defense of racial purity.

Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787-1845

Master Plots

Edgar Allan Poe

Elizabeth Hewitt

Like other volumes in the Case Studies in Critical Controversy series, this edition is designed for 'teaching the conflicts'— in this case, the conflicts surrounding the work of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the most popular yet contested literary figures in all of American Literature. The text incorporates selections from Poe's fiction, poetry and nonfiction, along with critical essays representing three major critical and cultural controversies about Poe and his work: aesthetics and the literary marketplace; race; and gender and sexuality. The literature and critical essays are supported by distinctive editorial matter that introduces students to critical conflict in literary studies, to Poe's life and work, to each critical controversy, and to arguing about the controversies. The edition helps students grapple not only with the critical issues concerning Poe, but also with cultural debates about literature itself.

Selected Poetry, Tales, and Essays, Authoritative Texts with Essays on Three Critical Controversies

When Art Spiegelman's Maus won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, it marked a new era for comics. Comics are now taken seriously by the same academic and cultural institutions that long dismissed the form. And the visibility of comics continues to increase, with alternative cartoonists now published by major presses and more comics-based films arriving on the screen each year. Projections argues that the seemingly sudden visibility of comics is no accident. Beginning with the parallel development of narrative comics at the turn of the 20th century, comics have long been a form that invites—indeed requires—readers to help shape the stories being told. Today, with the rise of interactive media, the creative techniques and the reading practices comics have been experimenting with for a century are now in universal demand. Recounting the history of comics from the nineteenth-century rise of sequential comics to the newspaper strip, through comic books and underground comix, to the graphic novel and webcomics, Gardner shows why they offer the best models for rethinking storytelling in the twenty-first century. In the process, he reminds us of some beloved characters from our past and present, including Happy Hooligan, Krazy Kat, Crypt Keeper, and Mr. Natural.

Jared Gardner

Books

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