Modern American Counter Writing: Beats, Outriders, Ethnics

by A. Robert Lee

Overview

The dissident voice in US culture might almost be said to have been born with the territory. Its span runs from Roger Williams to Thoreau, Anne Bradstreet to Gertrude Stein, Ambrose Bierce to the New Journalism, The Beats to the recent Bad Subjects cyber-crowd. This new study analyses three recent literary tranches in the tradition: a re-envisioning of the whole Beat web or circuit; a consortium of postwar "outrider" voices – Hunter Thompson to Frank Chin, Joan Didion to Kathy Acker; and a latest purview of what, all too casually, has been designated "ethnic" writing. The aim is to set up and explore these different counter-seams of modern American writing, those which sit outside, or at least awkwardly within, agreed literary canons.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135161644
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/21/2010
Series:	Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	657 KB

About the Author

A. Robert Lee, formerly of the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, is professor of American Literature at Nihon University, Tokyo. He has held visiting appointments at Princeton, The University of Virginia, The University of Colorado and Berkeley. His recent books include Designs of Blackness: Mappings in the Literature and Culture of Afro-America (1998); Postindian Conversations, with Gerald Vizenor (1999); Multicultural American Literature: Comparative Black, Native, Latino/a and Asian American Fictions (2003), which won the 2004 American Book Award; Japan Textures: Sight and Word, with Mark Gresham (2007), and Gothic to Multicultural: Idioms of Imagining in American Literary Fiction (2008). He has also been responsible for a large number of essay-collections, among them Other British, Other Britain: Contemporary Multicultural Fiction (1995), The Beat Generation Writers (1996), the 4-volume Herman Melville: Critical Assessments (2001), China Fictions/English Language: Literary Essays in Diaspora, Memory, Story (2008) and Native American Writing, 4 Vols. (forthcoming 2009).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Counter Writing Part I: Beats 1: Beat Canon, Beat Shadow Canon 2: Beat Speaking Women: Diane di Prima, Joanne Kyger, Anne Waldman 3: Black Beat: Performing Ted Joans 4: Beat International: Michael Horovitz, Andrei Voznesensky, Kazuko Shiraishi Part II: Outriders 5: Gonzo Scripts: Hunter S. Thompson 6: A View of One’s Own: Joan Didion 7: Pirated Texts: Kathy Acker Part III: Ethnics 8: Ethnics Behaving Badly: Texts and Contexts 9: Home and Away: US Poetries of Immigration and Migrancy 10: Out of the 1990s: Latino/a Un-bordering in US Fiction 11: A Western East: America’s China Poetry in Marilyn Chin, Russell Leong, John Yau and Wing Tek Lum 12: Insider, Outsider: Japanese America Writing Japan 13: Bad Boy, Godfather, Storyteller: Frank Chin 14: Manila Tropics: Jessica Hagedorn 15: Black South, Black Europe: William Demby 16: Rearview Mirrors: Gerald Vizenor Notes Index

Editorial Reviews

"In the light of the ongoing debates being waged over the canon and multiculturalism, Modern American Counter Writing should prove an indispensable tool for those engaged in the practice of literary criticism, as well as anyone concerned with the way in which narrative interacts with society."
— Gabrielle David, Phati'tude Literary Magazine, Vol. 2, issue No. 1, June, 2010

"Modern American Counter Writing is the work of a mature scholar whose essays reflect years of research and teaching; it builds on prior research, but is wholly original in its analysis and interpretation of texts, as well as its theoretically sophisticated approach to literary history and canon formation…Lee is also a good read: he wears his learning lightly and writes in an engaging style that promotes interest in the writers under discussion, especially those that may be new to the reader."
—Jennie Skerl, Beat Studies Association Review, Vol. 4, No.2, June 2010

"Lee shows that the power of literature lies in its ability to create and question, to build and discard, to nurture and counter, to finish and start again. In the hands of a gifted writer and scholar such as Lee, modern American counter writing shines on as we are reminded of what an absolute pleasure it is to read."
—Polina Mackay, European Journal of American Studies, Reviews 2011-1

From the Publisher