Amy Hungerford je popredná odborníčka na americkú literatúru 20. a 21. storočia, so zvláštnym zameraním na obdobie po roku 1945. Jej kritická práca sa ponára do zložitého vzťahu medzi genocídou, literatúrou a konceptom personifikácie, pričom skúma, ako sa texty vyrovnávajú s hlbokými historickými traumami. Skúma vývoj postmoderného presvedčenia prostredníctvom americkej literatúry a jej spojenia s náboženstvom od 60. rokov. Hungerfordovej bádanie osvetľuje výrazné kvality amerického románu v druhej polovici 20. storočia a neskôr.
"Examines the implications of conflating texts with people in a broad range of texts: Art Spiegelman's Maus, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, the poetry of Sylvia Plath, Binjamin Wilkomirski's fake Holocaust memoir Fragments, and the fiction of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, and Don Delillo."--Jacket.
Exploring the intersection of intense religious beliefs and pluralism in modern America, the book delves into how belief can exist without strict doctrine. It highlights the significance of religious imagination in contemporary practices and in notable American literature over the past fifty years. Amy Hungerford illustrates how imaginative literature and religious practices enable writers and critics to elevate language to a transcendent level, imbuing words with a religious significance that transcends their literal meanings.
Through fascinating case studies of people working in publishing both large and small-scale, traditional and digital, this book tells the story of how new literary work emerges and finds readers in our era of too many books.