Working Women in American Literature, 1865–1950 consists of eight original essays by literary, historical, and multicultural critics on the subject of working women in late-nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century American literature. The volume examines how the American working woman has been presented, misrepresented, and underrepresented in American realistic and naturalistic literature (1865–1930), and by later authors influenced by realism and naturalism. Points explored include: the historical vocational realities of working women (e.g., factory workers, seamstresses, maids, teachers, writers, prostitutes, etc.); the distortions in literary representations of female work; the ways in which these representations still inform the lives of working women today; and new perspectives from queer theory, immigrant studies, and race and class analyses. These essays draw on current feminist thought while remaining mindful of the historicity of the context. The essayists discuss important women writers of the period (for instance, Ellen Glasgow, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Rachel Crothers, Willa Cather, and the understudied Ann Petry), as well as canonical writers like Theodore Dreiser, Henry James, and William Dean Howells. The discussions touch on a variety of literary and artistic genres: novels, short stories, other forms of fiction, biographies, dramas, and films. In the introductory essay and throughout the collection, the term “working women in the United States” is deconstructed; the historical and cultural definitions of “work,” and the words “work in America” are redefined through the lens of genders.

This book examines working women in realistic and naturalistic literature. By addressing intersecting issues of race and class and including a study of domestic work, it contributes to the fields of multiculturalism, feminism, and working-class studies and to the increasing research interests in these areas.

Marginalized Women and Work in 20th- and 21st-Century British and American Literature and Media examines the intricate relationship between marginalized women and work through critical essays about representations of women’s work in non-canonical literary writings, mass media, and popular culture. Covering a broad range of texts including Paule Marshall’s fiction, Natasha Trethewey’s poetry, and the Netflix series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker, among others, this collection takes an intersectional approach in order to shed light on the definition and meaning of marginalized women's work and the value of their labor in the capitalistic economic systems of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The Fall, led by Mark E. Smith, were one of the most intriguing, influential, and prolific post-punk groups in British popular culture. Always Different, Always the Same: Critical Essays on The Fall is a thorough and critical account of the group, engaging with the often complex and challenging creative work. In this groundbreaking text, volume editors Eoin Devereux and Martin J. Power bring together contributions from a wide variety of disciplinary homes, including ethnomusicology, sociology, literary theory, linguistics, journalism, cultural studies, and film and media studies. Contributors Kieran Cashell, Brian Clancy, Matt Davies, Eoin Devereux, Samuel Flannagan, John Fleming, Gavin Friday, Mike Glennon, K. A. Laity, Ben Lawley, John McFarland, David Meagher, Michael Mary Murphy, Martin Myers, Martin J. Power, Suzanne Smith, Elaine Vaughan, Paul Wilson.

Updated throughout and with much new material, A History of American Literature, Second Edition, is the most up-to-date and comprehensive survey available of the myriad forms of American Literature from pre-Columbian times to the present. The most comprehensive and up-to-date history of American literature available today Covers fiction, poetry, drama, and non-fiction, as well as other forms of literature including folktale, spirituals, the detective story, the thriller, and science fiction Explores the plural character of American literature, including the contributions made by African American, Native American, Hispanic and Asian American writers Considers how our understanding of American literature has changed over the past?thirty years Situates American literature in the contexts of American history, politics and society Offers an invaluable introduction to American literature for students at all levels, academic and general readers

No More Separate Spheres! challenges the limitations of thinking about American literature and culture within the narrow rubric of “male public” and “female private” spheres from the founders to the present. With provocative essays by an array of cutting-edge critics with diverse viewpoints, this collection examines the ways that the separate spheres binary has malingered unexamined in feminist criticism, American literary studies, and debates on the public sphere. It exemplifies new ways of analyzing gender, breaks through old paradigms, and offers a primer on feminist thinking for the twenty-first century. Using American literary studies as a way to talk about changing categories of analysis, these essays discuss the work of such major authors as Catharine Sedgwick, Herman Melville, Pauline E. Hopkins, Frederick Douglass, Catharine Beecher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, W. E. B. Du Bois, Sarah Orne Jewett, Nathaniel Hawthorne, María Ampara Ruiz de Burton, Ann Petry, Gwendolyn Brooks, Cynthia Kadohata, Chang Rae-Lee, and Samuel Delany. No More Separate Spheres! shows scholars and students different ways that gender can be approached and incorporated into literary interpretations. Feisty and provocative, it provides a forceful analysis of the limititations of any theory of gender that applies only to women, and urges suspicion of any argument that posits “woman” as a universal or uniform category. By bringing together essays from the influential special issue of American Literature of the same name, a number of classic essays, and several new pieces commissioned for this volume, No More Separate Spheres! will be an ideal teaching tool, providing a key supplementary text in the American literature classroom. Contributors. José F. Aranda, Lauren Berlant, Cathy N. Davidson, Judith Fetterley, Jessamyn Hatcher, Amy Kaplan, Dana D. Nelson, Christopher Newfield, You-me Park, Marjorie Pryse, Elizabeth Renker, Ryan Schneider, Melissa Solomon, Siobhan Somerville, Gayle Wald , Maurice Wallace