Writing and America

Crosscurrents is a new series designed to meet the challenge of interdisciplinary developments by drawing upon the discourses of history, politics, race and gender in the study of English studies. Subjects range from those which are well established within the prevailing structure of English Studies to new and unusual areas which have emerged directly out of innovative interdisciplinary work.

Writing in America surveys the writing genres that have contributed to the American notions of America . Essays from scholars from both side of the Atlantic chart the range of responses to American nationhood from colonial times to the present and include dissenting responses from communities such as native American, black and feminist writers. Case studies from writers such as James Fenimore Cooper and William Carlos Williams provide a framework for discussions on topics such as colonial notions of America as the promised land, the discourses of nationhood in the republic, the sense of nationhood in American historiography, and the formation of the American Canon. Draws upon extracts from the American Bills of Rights and the Constitution as examples of different types of writing.