2 Contemporary Literature, 1970 to Present
in drama, and confession as central in poetry and autobiography. She includes dis-
cussion of less traditional forms, such as Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus: A
Survivor’s Tale (1981, 1986) and New Journalism such as that of Truman Capote,
Norman Mailer, and Joan Didion.
Deborah L. Madsen, Beyond the Borders: American Literature and Post-Colonial
Theory (London: Pluto Press, 2003).
Examines “how America’s own imperial history has shaped the literatures
that have emerged from within America,” with a strong emphasis on issues of
identity, multiculturalism, and immigration. Sixteen essays discuss works by
Native Americans, Chicano/as, African Americans, Asian Americans, Chinese
Americans, Filipino Americans, Hawaiians, Puerto Ricans, and Americans from
the Caribbean and Southeast Asia; issues of immigration and assimilation; and
comparisons to Canadian literatures.
Robert McRuer, The Queer Renaissance: Contemporary American Literature and the
Reinvention of Lesbian and Gay Identities (New York: New York University
Press, 1997).
Discusses novels, poetry, and plays by openly gay and lesbian writers in the last
few decades of the twentieth century, with a focus on intersections between
art and activism. The volume includes consideration of works by Audre Lorde,
Edmund White, Randall Kenan, Gloria Anzaldúa, Tony Kushner, and Sarah
Schulman, among others.
Kenneth Millard, Contemporary American Fiction: An Introduction to American Fic-
tion since 1970 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Survey of American fiction since 1970 offering interpretations of novels arranged
around several themes including family, gender, the West, consumerism, and
technology, among others.
Joyce Carol Oates and Christopher R. Beha, eds., The Ecco Anthology of
Contemporary American Short Fiction (New York: Ecco/HarperPerennial,
2008).
Forty-eight short stories, most published in the twenty-first century, with a brief
but valuable preface in which Oates argues that the contemporary short story is
less self-consciously experimental than those of the 1960s and 1970s.
Stacey Michele Olster, Reminiscence and Re-Creation in Contemporary American
Fiction (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Traces the influence of historical and political events on American Postmodern-
ist writers, including Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Robert Coover, and E. L.
Doctorow.
Nancy J. Peterson, Against Amnesia: Contemporary Women Writers and the Crises of
Historical Memory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
Examines the ways women writers such as Louise Erdrich and Toni Morrison
represent historical—often traumatic—events related to their racial and ethnic
backgrounds to counteract what she perceives as the amnesia and nostalgia char-
acterizing mainstream culture.