A native of Iowa and long-time resident of Pennsylvania, Josephine Herbst (1892-1969), well known and highly regarded in the 1930s, was the author of seven novels, twenty-seven short stories, a biography, and numerous journal and newspaper articles. In the current study, the first on Herbst's short fiction, the author provides a critical discussion of each of Herbst's stories, including relevant biographical and historical data.

Recovering the bold voices and audacious lives of women who confronted capitalist society’s failures and injustices in the 1930s—a decade unnervingly similar to our own In the Company of Radical Women Writers rediscovers the political commitments and passionate advocacy of seven writers—Black, Jewish, and white—who as young women turned to communism around the Great Depression and, over decades of national crisis, spoke to issues of labor, land, and love in ways that provide urgent, thought-provoking guidance for today. Rosemary Hennessy spotlights the courageous lives of women who confronted similar challenges to those we still face: exhausting and unfair labor practices, unrelenting racial injustice, and environmental devastation. As Hennessy brilliantly shows, the documentary journalism and creative and biographical writings of Marvel Cooke, Louise Thompson Patterson, Claudia Jones, Alice Childress, Josephine Herbst, Meridel Le Sueur, and Muriel Rukeyser recognized that life is sustained across a web of dependencies that we each have a duty to maintain. Their work brought into sharp focus the value and dignity of Black women’s domestic work, confronted the destructive myths of land exploitation and white supremacy, and explored ways of knowing attuned to a life-giving erotic energy that spans bodies and relations. In doing so, they also expanded the scope of American communism. By tracing the attention these seven women pay to “life-making” as the relations supporting survival and wellbeing—from Harlem to the American South and Midwest—In the Company of Radical Women Writers reveals their groundbreaking reconceptions of the political and provides bracing inspiration in the ongoing fight for justice.

Containing pieces by distinguished scholars including Darlene Harbour Unrue and Robert Brinkmeyer, this book is the first full investigation of the links between Porter's only novel and European intellectual history. Beginning with Sebastian Brant, author of the late medieval Narrenschiff, whom she acknowledges in her Preface to Ship of Fools, Porter's image of Europe emerges as more complex, more knowledgeable, and more politically nuanced than previous critics of her novel have acknowledged. Ship of Fools is in conversation with Europe's humanistic tradition as well as with the political moments of 1931 and 1962; i.e., the years that elapsed from the novel's conception to its completion. The novel and the 1965 film based upon it intervene into the history of film, the assessment of Weimar Germany, and Porter's clear-eyed judgment of her own times through the lens of her art.

A COMPANION TO THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY A Companion to the American Short Story traces the development of this versatile literary genre over the past two centuries. Written by leading critics in the field, and edited by two major scholars, it explores a wide range of writers, from Edgar Allen Poe and Edith Wharton, at the end of the nineteenth century to important modern writers such as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Richard Wright. Contributions with a broader focus address groups of multiethnic, Asian, and Jewish writers. Each chapter places the short story into context, focusing on the interaction of cultural forces and aesthetic principles. The Companion takes account of cutting edge approaches to literary studies and contributes to the ongoing redefinition of the American canon, embracing genres such as ghost and detective fiction, cycles of interrelated short fiction, and comic, social and political stories. The volume also reflects the diverse communities that have adopted this literary form and made it their own, featuring entries on a variety of feminist and multicultural traditions. This volume presents an important new consideration of the role of the short story in the literary history of American literature.

Writers on the Left chronicles the involvement of American writers with the progressive and radical movement from its bohemian origins in 1912 to its disillusionment and demise in the early 1940s. Aaron creates a perceptive and often poignant portrait of writers such as Max Eastman and Floyd Dell, who tried to wed the seemingly conflicting impulses behind the need for uninhibited artistic expression and to abolish the inequalities of class and race.

Discussion of fiction, poetry and cultural history is given central place in Wald's analysis. From this perspective he argues that the contemporary concerns of race, gender and culture have created a powerful new leftist critique. The book argues that that the left can draw strength by reconceptualizing its cultural legacy as a rich, diverse stream of political and cultural experiences flowing over six decades. It draws deeply on this tradition, highlighting its contemporary relevance. Alan Wald is the author of "James T. Farrell: The Revolutionary Socialist Years", "The Revolutionary Imagination", "The New York Intellectuals" and "The Responsibility of Intellectuals".

Presents a biographical dictionary profiling important women authors, including birth and death dates, accomplishments and bibliography of each author's work.