American World Literature: An Introduction

Paul Giles is Challis Professor of English at the University of Sydney, Australia. He was previously Professor of American Literature at the University of Oxford, University Lecturer in American Literature at Cambridge, and President of the International American Studies Association.

• Acknowledgments vi1 The Theory of American World Literature 1References 252 Early American Literature in the World 302.1 Contact Zones and Extended Scales 302.2 The Classical Counternarrative 412.3 The Early American Novel’s Transatlantic Axis 512.4 Thomas Paine and Universal Order 63References 693 National/Global: The Framing of Nineteenth‐Century American Literature 753.1 National Agendas and Transnational Dialogues 753.2 Slavery’s Global Compass 923.3 Planetary Space and Intellectual Distance 113References 1194 The Worlds of American Modernism 1264.1 The American Novel and the Great War 1264.2 The Esthetics of Contradiction 1464.3 American Studies and World Literature: The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath 156References 1655 Postmodernism, Globalization, and US Literary Culture 1715.1 The Politics of Postmodernism 1715.2 Styles of Globalization 1765.3 Disorientation and Reorientation: Kincaid, Morrison, Kingston 193References 202Index 208

“…and what this book tries to do – is elaborating a new procedure, a method to disentangle a complex entity into simpler units which enhance comprehension without giving anything for granted. The pursue of such aim makes American World Literature a particularly rich book, ideal for students with a background in literature and scholars wishing to keep an account of the major historical and critical issues of the subject at hand.” - Serena Demichelis for Iperstoria, Issue 14 – Fall/Winter 2019