What exactly is modernism and who are modernist writers? What distinguishes American modernism from its European counterpart?
American Modernism (Re)Considered questions the principal distinction between modernism and other genres/movements/styles in literature through new critical readings of canonical modernist texts alongside texts which pose a problem for modernism due to their ambiguous, if not marginal, relation to some of its predominant tenets. It asks: Is modernism characterized principally by a transition from older forms (like naturalism and realism) to a style that is new, innovative, and experimental? Is it found in shared understandings and alignments regarding the nature and purpose of art? Is it identifiable by modernists' treatment of various central themes - including as a reaction to modernity; as a response to the Boer and World wars; as an interrogation of Britain's empire and its dissolution - and how these events fragmented modern life? Or is it all of the above?
Contributors discuss a wide range of texts - by authors such as Nella Larsen, Willa Cather, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anne Carson, Wallace Stevens, Américo Paredes, Richard Wright, Ernest Hemingway, and T. S. Eliot - to challenge the aesthetic, social, and temporal boundaries of modernism in America. Through original close readings of these texts,
American Modernism (Re)Considered subjects modernism to new interrogations and offers new answers to questions that remain contemporary even as they harken back to its height of popularity and interest in the mid-1920s.
Birkenstein, Jeff: - Jeff Birkenstein is an Assistant Professor of English at Centralia College, USA. Birkenstein's major interests lie in American Literature post-1865, American and world short story, the short story sequence, and cultural and food criticism. An edited collection of essays, Cultural Representation in the International Short Story Sequence (co-edited with Robert M. Luscher, University of Nebraska at Kearney) has just been accepted for publication. He has published several papers in academic journals as well as book reviews, commentaries, essays and a short story. He teaches a range of classes, from Freshman Seminar and Composition to African American Literature, The Short Story, Food & Fiction, and Narratives from the Aftermath of 9/11. Birkenstein received his Ph.D. from the University of Kentucky in 2003; he has a second MA in Teaching English as a Second/Other Language.
Hauhart, Robert C.: - Robert C. Hauhart, Ph.D., J.D., is a Professor in the Department of Society and Social Justice at Saint Martin's University, Lacey, WA (USA). He is the author or co-editor of twelve books and numerous published papers in sociology, law, literature, and education journals. In literature, Professor Hauhart is a student of twentieth century American literature and, in particular, American Dream themes in American literature. He is the co-editor, with Jeff Birkenstein, of six volumes: American Writers in Exile (Salem Press 2015); Social Justice in American Literature (Salem Press 2017); European Writers in Exile (Lexington Books 2018); Connections and Influences Between the Russian and American Short Story (Lexington Books 2021); Significant Food: Critical Readings to Nourish American Literature (University of Georgia Press 2024); and Consuming the American Dream (forthcoming, University of Tennessee Press). In sociology, Professor Hauhart is a recognized scholar of the American Dream.
