Christopher K. Coffman

Recent poems and fictions set in the early Americas are typically read as affirmations of cultural norms, as evidence of the impossibility of genuine engagement with the historical past, or as contentious repudiations of received histories. Inspired particularly by Mihai Spariosu’s arguments regarding literary playfulness as an opening to peace, Rewriting Early America: The Prenational Past in Postmodern Literature adopts a different perspective, with the goal of demonstrating that many recent literary texts undertake more constructive and hopeful projects with regard to the American past than critics usually recognize. While honoring writers' pervasive critiques of hegemony, this volume trades a preoccupation with antagonism for an interest in restoration and recuperation. It describes how texts by John Barth, John Berryman, Susan Howe, Toni Morrison, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Pynchon, and William T. Vollmann harness the ambiguities of the colonial past to find sociocultural possibilities that operate beyond the workings of power and outside the politics of difference. Throughout, this book remains devoted to uncovering the moments at which contemporary writers proffer visions of American communities defined not by marginalization and oppression, but by responsive understanding and inclusion.

The Prenational Past in Postmodern Literature

Rewriting Early America

Daniel Lukes

"This fascinating, massive, wide-ranging collection that editors Christopher K. Coffman and Daniel Lukes have gathered together into William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion will soon be recognized as one of those rare critical books for which that egregiously overused term 'groundbreaking' is fully justified." —Larry McCaffery, from the preface of William T. Vollmann: A Critical Companion The essays in this collection make a case for regarding William T. Vollmann as the most ambitious, productive, and important living author in the US. His oeuvre includes not only outstanding work in numerous literary genres, but also global reportage, ethical treatises, paintings, photographs, and many other productions. His reputation as a daring traveler and his fascination with life on the margins have earned him an extra-literary renown unequaled in our time. Perhaps most importantly, his work is exceptional in relation to the literary moment. Vollmann is a member of a group of authors who are responding to the skeptical ironies of postmodernism with a reinvigoration of fiction’s affective possibilities and moral sensibilities, but he stands out even among this cohort for his prioritization of moral engagement, historical awareness, and geopolitical scope. Included in this book in addition to twelve scholarly critical essays are reflections on Vollmann by many of his peers, confidantes, and collaborators, including Jonathan Franzen, James Franco, and Michael Glawogger. With a preface by Larry McCaffery and an afterword by Michael Hemmingson, this book offers readings of most of Vollmann’s works, includes the first critical engagements with several key titles, and introduces a range of voices from international Vollmann scholarship.

A Critical Companion

William T. Vollmann

Theophilus Savvas

Several of American literature’s most prominent authors, and many of their most perceptive critics and reviewers, argue that fiction of the last quarter century has turned away from the tendencies of postmodernist writing. Yet, the nature of that turn, and the defining qualities of American fiction after postmodernism, remain less than clear. This volume identifies four prominent trends of the contemporary scene: the recovery of the real, a rethinking of historical engagement, a preoccupation with materiality, and a turn to the planetary. Readings of works by various leading figures, including Dave Eggers, Jonathan Franzen, A.M. Homes, Lance Olsen, Richard Powers, William T. Vollmann, and David Foster Wallace, support a variety of arguments about this recent revitalization of American literature. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Textual Practice.

Christopher K. Coffman

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