The 1993 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Toni Morrison is well established as one of the leading voices in American letters. Even so, her novels are often read narrowly rather than expansively, read as literary artifacts rather than as dynamic cultural texts.

Without ignoring the literary and artistic achievements of Morrison's writing, Toni Morrison: Critical and Theoretical Approaches calls attention to the cultural and political dimensions of her work. Drawing on a diverse range of approaches and theories--from W. E. B. DuBois to deconstruction and postmodernism, from black...

In Against Amnesia, Nancy J. Peterson addresses the ongoing postmodernist debate over the possibility and relevance of documentary and official histories. Drawing on Adrienne Rich's claim that women's literature and multicultural literature vigorously resist the amnesia and nostalgia that characterize mainstream North American culture, Peterson examines the struggles toward collective memory in a wealth of contemporary women's writing.

Peterson's in-depth analyses of selected works by Louise Erdrich, Toni Morrison, Irena Klepfisz, Joy Kogawa, and other contemporary women...

In Conversations with Sherman Alexie, the writer displays the same passion, dynamic sense of humor, and sharp observational skills that characterize his...