After the End of History: American Fiction in the 1990s

In this bold book, Samuel Cohen asserts the literary and historical importance of the period between the fall of the Berlin wall and that of the Twin Towers in New York. With refreshing clarity, he examines six 1990s novels and two post-9/11 novels that explore the impact of the end of the Cold War: Pynchon's "Mason & Dixon", Roth's "American Pastoral", Morrison's "Paradise", O'Brien's "In the Lake of the Woods", Didion's "The Last Thing He Wanted", Eugenides' "Middlesex", Lethem's "Fortress of Solitude", and DeLillo's "Underworld".

From the Odyssey and King Lear to modern novels by Umberto Eco and John le Carré, the recognition scene has enjoyed a long life in western literature. It first became a regular feature of prose literature in the Greek novels of the first century CE. In these examples, it is the event that ensures the happy ending for the hero and heroine, and as such, it seems, was as pleasing for Greek readers as the canonical Hollywood kiss is for contemporary movie goers.

The oldest European novels were written in ancient Greek during the first few centuries of the Common Era. Despite the gold rush towards these novels in the last two decades and the resurgence of interest in representations of character in literary studies, and Classical studies in particular, no volume has yet been devoted to exploring character and characterization in the ancient Greek novels.

Eighteenth-Century Poetry and the Rise of the Novel Reconsidered begins with the brute fact that poetry jostled up alongside novels in the bookstalls of eighteenth-century England. Indeed, by exploring unexpected collisions and collusions between poetry and novels, this volume of exciting, new essays offers a reconsideration of the literary and cultural history of the period.

''The range and complexity of graphic novels being published right now is simply amazing to me….They are part of what should be a balanced array of texts that all can read, enjoy, and learn from. In this volume, the authors point to this proliferation, as well as the educative potential of graphic novels. After reading its pages, I feel others will agree with me that they have done an excellent job pointing out how graphic novel creators such as Jim Ottaviani and Larry Gonick communicate much about history, science, and mathematics while also making connections to comprehension and thinking skills that accompany both literacy and content-specific learning.''