Writing America
ISBN: 9780813576008
Platform/Publisher: Project MUSE / Rutgers University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Chapters; Download: Chapters
Subjects: American literature; American literature; American literature; Authors American; Literary landmarks;

America's literary landscape proves both vast and interconnected in Stanford professor Fishkin's (Lighting Out for the Territory) newest book, which shines a light on the relationships between American authors and the places where they live and work. Using the National Register of Historic Places as her guide, the author sparks interesting questions regarding how writers influence, and are influenced by, place. The locations discussed include Walden Pond, Angel Island in San Francisco Bay (the onetime site of a processing center for Asian immigrants depicted in Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men), and the Brooklyn Ferry (discussed in relation to Walt Whitman). Chapters on Mark Twain and the massacre at Wounded Knee deal with the difference between history and memory. The influence of the writers included is far-reaching: Fishkin shows Paul Laurence Dunbar and Kingston tearing through racial barriers and Whitman helping to redefine the literary landscape, not just for other Americans but for writers such as Federico García Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, and Pablo Neruda who read Whitman from afar. With passages by the various authors, Fishkin's book offers a diverse look at our nation's literary landscape and history. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Shelley Fisher Fishkin received her B.A. from Yale College. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. at Yale University. She taught American Studies and English at the University of Texas from 1985 to 2003, and was Chair of the Department of American Studies. Since 2003 she has been a professor at the English Department of Stanford University. She has been awarded an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, was a Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer in Japan and was the winner of a Harry H. Ransom Teaching Excellence Award at the University of Texas.

Much of her work is focused on Mark Twain but she has also published works on writers such as Frederick Douglass and Theodore Dreiser. Her research interests have lead her to focus on the influence of African American voices on American literature. Dr. Fishkin is the author, editor or co-editor of over forty books and has published over eighty articles and reviews. Her book Was Huck Black? Mark Twain and African-American Voices was selected as an "Outstanding Academic Book" by Choice in 1993.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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