This book examines novels of Faulkner and Morrison as well as Mark Twain and Ralph Ellison in order to show that their works forcefully undermine the racial and sexual divisions characterizing both the South and contemporary culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Philip Goldstein earned a B.A. in English from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in English from Temple University and was promoted to full professor at the University of Delaware in 2001. With James Machor, he edited Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies (Routledge 2001).

Introduction:

Ch. 1: Aesthetic Theory: From Adorno to Cultural History

Ch. 2: Reading in History and in Theory

Ch. 3: Mark Twain's Detective Fiction: From The Stolen White Elephant and The Double-Barrelled Detective Story to The Adventures of Pudd'nHead Wilson.

Ch. 4: Faulkner's Subversive Modernism: Light in August

Ch. 5: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man: Modernism and Democracy in American Literature

Ch.6: Three Days Before the Shooting: Modernism and Democracy in/and American Literature

Ch.7: Toni Morrison's Beloved: The Forgotten History of Slavery and Patriarchy

Ch. 8: Toni Morrison's A Mercy: The Critique of Patriarchy and History's Lost Opportunities

Conclusion