American Literary Studies in Postmillennial India

American Literary Studies in Postmillennial India critically investigates multiple perspectives demonstrated by American poets, dramatists, and fiction writers. It discusses universal themes of racism, class, gender, and identity crisis and demonstrates how American letters influence the Indian intellectual scene and how it is interpreted in turn.

American Literary Studies in Postmillennial India: Critical Perspectives is a collection of critical essays on Contemporary American Literature. This book is a classic and unique collection of critical essays on various topics such as Americanness, American Dream, Transcendentalism, Counterculture, Gay culture, Post Communism, Race, Class, Gender in American Literature, African American literature, Jewish American literature, and comparative study between Indian and American Literature. The essays cut across the various genres of poetry, theatre, fiction and short stories. This book is the first of its kind, as all the collection of essays have been written by eminent professors across India, Fulbright Fellows, and serious research scholars of high repute who have contributed remarkably to American Studies both in India and across the globe.

Introduction

Part One: A Conversation on American and Indian Literature

Chapter One: Inspiration from the Banks of the Indus River: A Conversation with Nibir K. Ghosh, Robin Lindley

Part Two: American Poetry

Chapter Two: Invoking the Goddesses Within: Women’s Writing and Negotiations with Americanness, Sweta Antony

Chapter Three: Exploring ‘the only real elysium’* through Transcendental Voyages by Thoreau and Tagore, Nishamani Kar

Chapter Four: Seasons as Motifs in Louis Gluck Poetry, A. Karunaker and S. Shiv Shankar

Part Three: American Theatre

Chapter Five: Rape and Religion in the Psycho Traumatic Spaces of Adrienne Kennedy’s Protagonists, Sarada Thallam

Chapter Six: The Politics of AIDS and the Liberatory Millenarian Vision in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Arnab Ray

Part Four: American Fiction

Chapter Seven: Black Lives Matter: Relocating the select writings of Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain, Mahjabeen Neshat Anjum

Chapter Eight: Problem of Human Education in Invisible Man: A Gambit of Soft-slavery, Dharamdas M. Shende

Chapter Nine: The Politics of Colour: White Opacity and Toni Morrison, Shruti Das

Chapter Ten: Liberation in “n*****r work” and Common Arts: An Eco-Womanistic study of The Color Purple, Kotti Sree Ramesh and D. Jyothirmai

Chapter Eleven: Mc Murphy and Chief Bromden as Forerunners of Counter Culture—A Study of Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, B. Gopal Rao and M. Sangeetha Rao

Chapter Twelve: Masks and Disguises: A Carnivalesque Study of Philip Roth’s Sabbath’s Theatre, Rama N. H. Alapati

Part Five: American Short Stories

Chapter Thirteen: Monstrous Discourses: Female Body Image and Gothic Subjectivity in Short Stories by Alice Walker, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Joyce Carol Oates, Srirupa Chatterjee and Nilanjana Ghosal

About the Contributors