Postmodernism, Culture and Class in John Edgar Wideman's Selected Fiction

John Edgar Wideman's Literary Genius Priscilla R. Ramsey has designed her research and critical interpretation in this book so that her writing can extend its reach to popular reading audiences then college undergraduates and Scholars in the academy. She takes complicated concepts and insights from such theorists as Derrida, Jameson and Eagleton among many other critics. This text attempts to guide readers through Wideman’'s meanings without becoming an oversimplified guide book. Rather, this book looks carefully at Wideman’'s experimental strategies and his configurative designs through his focus on African-American working class experiences. She illustrates how the culture becomes a compensating factor against what would otherwise become social class ennui. Moreover, she looks carefully at his experimentalism as its underlying goals are to mask a political and social critique of Black working class experience.