American Literature in Transition, 1990–2000 American Literature in Transition Series

Written in the shadow of the approaching millennium, American literature in the 1990s was beset by bleak announcements of the end of books, the end of postmodernism, and even the end of literature. Yet, as conservative critics marked the century's twilight hours by launching elegies for the conventional canon, American writers proved the continuing vitality of their literature by reinvigorating inherited forms, by adopting and adapting emerging technologies to narrative ends, and by finding new voices that had remained outside that canon for too long. By reading 1990s literature in a sequence of shifting contexts - from independent presses to the AIDS crisis, and from angelology to virtual reality - American Literature in Transition, 1990?2000 provides the fullest map yet of the changing shape of a rich and diverse decade's literary production. It offers new perspectives on the period's well-known landmarks, Toni Morrison, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace, but also overdue recognition to writers such as Ana Castillo, Evan Dara, Steve Erickson, and Carole Maso.

Part I. End times: 1. American literature and the Millennium Jeremy Green; 2. Angels, ghosts and post secular visions Brian McHale; 3. Aging novelists and the end of the American century Marshall Boswell; 4. Violence Sean Grattan; 5. The end of the book David Ciccoricco; 6. The end of postmodernism Ralph Clare; Part II. Forms: 7. Enclyclopedic fictions Stephen J. Burn; 8. Historical fiction John N. Duvall; 9. Lyrical thinking in poetry of the '90s Thomas Gardner; 10. Story-cycles Paul March-Russell; 11. Materiality in the late age of print Mary K. Holland; 12. Manifestos Rachel Greenwalk Smith; 13. Revisionary strategies Christian Moraru; Part III. Interconnectivity: 14. Borders and mixed race fictions Aliki Varvogli; 15. Globalization Paul Giles; 16. The two cultures Novel Jon Adams; 17. Ecosystem Heather Houser; 18. Virtual reality Joseph Conte; Part IV. Public and Private Life: 19. Trauma Patrick O'Donnell; 20. Family Kasia Boddy; 21. Aids Lesley Larkin; Part V. Institutions: 22. The university 'after' theory Daniel Punday; 23. Independent presses Jeffrey R. Dileo.

Stephen J. Burn is the author of two other books (and editor of three more) about contemporary literature, which have been translated into Finnish, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. In 2010, he was picked as one of the best critics under forty by the New York Times, and was invited to write the essay that opened their feature on 'Why Criticism Matters'.