As I Was Saying

Cecilia Konchar Farr is Dean of the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at West Liberty State University in West Virginia where, in addition to her work as dean, she teaches, researches, and writes about higher education, popular literature and the history of the novel. She is author of The Ulysses Delusion: Rethinking Standards of Literary Merit and Reading Oprah: How Oprah’s Book Club Changes the Way America Reads, and editor of several essay collections. An English professor, feminist theorist, and faculty advocate, she lives in Pittsburgh, just across the river from Gertrude Stein’s first home.

• Part OneIntroduction“The Long Unmaking of The Making of Americans,” by Cecilia Konchar Farr Biography: “Becoming Gertrude Stein," by Janie Sisson Publication History, by Janie SissonEarly Reception: “Damned naughty Gertrude," by Cecilia Konchar Farr Archival Insights: The Continuous Making of The Making of AmericansPart Two: Reading the NovelChapter OneThe Narrator, They: Metafictional Authorial IntentChapter TwoThe Modernist Sentence: They are All of Them RepeatingChapter ThreeOn Being American: Geography, Nationality and ClassChapter Four Lesbian Subtexts: The Unmaking of Patriarchy81 Part Three: SummaryCast of CharactersIllustration: Family TreeOne:The Dehnings and the Herslands, The Hersland Parents, Mrs. Hersland and the Hersland Children,   Martha HerslandTwo: Alfred Hersland and Julia DehningThree:David HerslandFour: History of a Family’s ProgressBibliographyAcknowledgementsIndex