American Literature

This anthology builds upon a set of primary texts—Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” and poems by Walt Whitman and Sherman Alexie. The overarching objective is to organize and explicate the wide corpus of writings that have been authored within the cultures of the United States of America. The introduction to the volume provides a comprehensive historical and contextual survey of American Literature from the earliest days of European settlement to the present. A heterogeneous selection of readings supplement the primary texts, reaching and illuminating far-flung literatures within the capacious umbrella of American Literature. The volume also includes detailed annotations and critical essays that are intended to aid students’ reading of the primary texts. Sashanka Das received his Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.) from the Department of English, University of Delhi. He has taught at several colleges of the University of Delhi, including Kirori Mal College and Gargi College. His research and teaching interests are American literature and culture, postcolonial literature, postmodern literature and literary theory. Shikha Kothiyal completed her M.Phil. from the Department of English, University of Delhi, in the field of American women’s prison poetry. She is currently teaching English at Shyama Prasad Mukherji College for Women, University of Delhi. Her areas of research interest include women’s writing, American literature, dystopian fiction and film studies.