This study analyses a changing literary order: America as unity and diversity, as a national and transnational entity. The literary critical writings assembled here offer a range of perspectives that trace much of the cultural geography at stake: narrative, autobiography, theatre, and so on. Also presented are a set of essays-reviews that, among various directions of focus, give attention to pre-Columbus foundations, a canonical North American anthology of poetry, and the omitted; Latin narrative and major ancient dramatists. It includes interviews with creatives and scholars such as Gerald Vizenor, Frank Chin, Louis Owens, John Cawelti and Rex Burns. The final review section gives a reception-sequence of monographs of relevant multicultural scholarship as well as contributions to the emerging broad mural of analysis.

This study analyses a changing literary order: America as unity and diversity, as a national and transnational entity. The literary critical writings assembled here offer a range of perspectives that trace much of the cultural geography at stake: narrative, autobiography, theatre, and so on. Also presented are a set of essays-reviews that, among various directions of focus, give attention to pre-Columbus foundations, a canonical North American anthology of poetry, and the omitted; Latin narrative and major ancient dramatists. It includes interviews with creatives and scholars such as Gerald Vizenor, Frank Chin, Louis Owens, John Cawelti and Rex Burns. The final review section gives a reception-sequence of monographs of relevant multicultural scholarship as well as contributions to the emerging broad mural of analysis.