This article presents an interview with the noted Nepali American fiction writer Samrat Upadhyay. Samrat Upadhyay's fiction is mostly about his native country of Nepal, but he writes mainly for an Anglo-American audience. In the interview, Upadhyay not only discusses his own work, but he also examines samples of prose by other Asian or Asian…

In her audio essay for the the National Public Radio's series "This I Believe," Iranian-American author and professor Azar Nafisi celebrates the affective power of empathy. In the essay, Nafisi refers to actual people in Darfur, Afghanistan, Iraq, Algeria, Rwanda, and North Korea, but she turns to classic nineteenth-century American novel to…

Traditionally, we English faculty have warned our students against simply identifying with a literary work's characters. For us, such attachments constitute "reading badly." But we engage in identifications, too, including ones with the work's author. A consideration of critical responses to "Benito Cereno" and "Uncle Tom's Cabin" enables us to…

Contends that the four major types of popular literature (science fiction, mayhem, horror, and whodunit) reveal the personalities of their readers. (DD)

Even the best university students reject serious modern literature in favor of science fiction and other popular fictions that present favorable, heroic versions of mankind. (JH)

An analysis of novels within novels. (DD)

Science fiction is satisfying, not because it projects the future, but because it helps the reader deal with the present. (JH)

Analyzes the power of fiction to override fact in politics and in commercial advertising. (DD)

Organizes fiction by providing plot models for romances, high mimetic works, low mimetic works, and ironic works. (DD)

The function of fiction is to entertain, not to analyze philosophical, political, or psychological concepts and attitudes. (DD)

Examines how two works of escapist fiction, Barbara Tori's "Cinderella Factor" and Irving Wallace's "The Fan Club," might affect a modern reader. (DD)

A paper presented at Workshop on Literary Sexual Stereotypes at annual convention of Modern Language Association of America (New York, December 27, 1970). (Editor)

Claims that Quebec writers in the 1960s-80s, buoyed by nationalist and separatist aims, created alternative "Marias" who write out of their language, dreams, and bodies, and who are trying to effect a further liberation. Asks where future trajectories invented by Quebec writers will propel their readers next. (RAE)