The Dialectics of Our America: Genealogy, Cultural Critique, and Literary History

Joining the current debate in American literary history, Jose David Saldivar offers a perspective on what constitutes not only the canon in American literature, but also the notion of America itself. His aim is the articulation of a fresh, trans-geographical conception of American culture, one more responsive to the geographical ties and political cross-currents of the hemisphere than to narrow national ideologies. Saldivar pursues this goal through an array of oppositional critical and creative practices. He analyzes a range of North American writers from ethnic minorities (Rolando Hinojosa, Gloria Anzaldua, Arturo Islas, Ntozake Shange) and Latin American authors (Jose Marti, Roberto Fernandez Retamar, Gabriel Garcia Marquez) whose work forms a radical critique of the dominant culture, its politics and its restrictive modes of expression.