American Houses: Literary Spaces of Resistance and Desire

Already in 1854, Henry David Thoreau had declared in Walden that Most men appear never to have considered what a house is (225). Like Thoreau, many other renowned American writers have considered what houses are and, particularly, what houses do, and they have created fictional dwellings that function not only as settings, but as actual central characters in their works. The volume is specifically concerned with the structure, the organization, and the objects inside houses, and argues that the space defined by rooms and their contents influences the consciousness, the imaginations, and the experiences of the humans who inhabit them.

Contributors are: Cristina Alsina Risquez, Rodrigo Andres, Vicent Cucarella-Ramon, Arturo Corujo, Mar Gallego, Ian Green, Michael Jonik, Wyn Kelley, Cynthia Lytle, Carme Manuel, Paula Martin-Salvan, Elena Ortells, Eva Puyuelo-Urena, Dolores Resano, and Cynthia Stretch.