GARY TOTTEN is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. He is the author of African American Travel Narratives from Abroad: Mobility and Cultural Work in the Age of Jim Crow, co-editor of Politics, Identity, and Mobility in Travel Writing, editor of Memorial Boxes and Guarded Interiors: Edith Wharton and Material Culture, and author of over forty journal articles and book chapters on US literature and culture.

Notes on Contributors viii
 
Introduction: What is Multiethnic Literature of the United States? 1
Gary Totten
 
Part I: Contexts 11
 
1 The Multiethnic Archive 13
Emily Ruth Rutter
 
2 Popular Culture and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 26
Christopher González
 
3 Displaced Subjects and Refugee Aesthetics: Contemporary Southeast Asian American Literature 40
Cathy J. Schlund-Vials
 
4 Print Culture and Multiethnic Literature of the United States: Shifting Constructions of Black Print Cultures 51
Joycelyn K. Moody and Corey D. Greathouse
 
5 The Environment and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 65
Gregory Toy
 
6 Translation and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 77
Marlene Hansen Esplin
 
7 Multiethnic Digital Humanities: Practices, Theories, Case Studies 89
David S. Roh
 
8 Critical Race Theory and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 103
Christina Hsu Accomando
 
9 Gender and Material Culture in Multiethnic Literature of the United States: On Black Women's Textiles and Textuality 117
Mary I. Unger
 
10 Social Class and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 131
Scott Henkel
 
Part II: Geographies 143
 
11 The US South and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 145
Kirstin L. Squint
 
12 Transpacific Routes of Asian American Literature 157
Steven Yao
 
13 The US West and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 169
Emily Lutenski
 
14 Hemispheric, Transnational, and Comparative Approaches to Multiethnic Literature of the United States 181
Vincent Pérez
 
Part III: Genres 197
 
15 Multiethnic Fiction of the US Empire: Why Read Twentieth-Century African American and Asian American Novels Together? 199
Caroline H. Yang
 
16 Aesthetic Discourse and Experimentation in Multiethnic Poetics of the United States 210
Laura Vrana
 
17 Multiethnic Life Writing of the United States 224
Eleanor Ty and William Kummer
 
18 Multiethnic Theatre of the United States 237
Jessica E. Teague and Arianna Razo
 
19 Multiethnic Graphic Narratives of the United States 249
Frederick Luis Aldama
 
20 Multiethnic Science Fiction of the United States 256
Joy Sanchez-Taylor
 
21 Multiethnic Children's and Young Adult Literature of the United States: From Painful Histories to Action and Progress 269
Cristina Rhodes
 
22 Neo-Passing and the (Re)Construction of Race in Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Multiethnic Literature of the United States 281
Martha J. Cutter
 
23 The New Novel of Slavery in the Twenty-First Century 292
Mark Eaton
 
Part IV: Themes 305
 
24 Politics and Multiethnic Literature of the United States: The Black Census and the Colored Conventions Movement 307
Sarah Lynn Patterson
 
25 Food and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 322
Wenying Xu
 
26 Travel, Mobility, and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 334
Gary Totten
 
27 Cultural Citizenship and Belonging in Multiethnic Literature of the United States 346
Tracy Floreani
 
28 The Body and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 358
Joanna Ziarkowska
 
29 Humor and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 371
Jennifer Glaser
 
30 Crime and Multiethnic Literature of the United States: The Mafia Frame--How America Came to Read the Gangster as Italian American 385
Joe Kraus
 
31 Religion and Multiethnic Literature of the United States 396
Danielle Haque
 
Index 408

Provides the most comprehensive collection of scholarship on the multiethnic literature of the United States
 
A Companion to the Multiethnic Literature of the United States isthe first in-depth reference work dedicated to the histories, genres, themes, cultural contexts, and new directions of American literature by authors of varied ethnic backgrounds. Engaging multiethnic literature as a distinct field of study, this unprecedented volume brings together a wide range of critical and theoretical approaches to offer analyses of African American, Latinx, Native American, Asian American, Jewish American, and Arab American literatures, among others.
 
Chapters written by a diverse panel of leading contributors explore how multiethnic texts represent racial, ethnic, and other identities, center the lives and work of the marginalized and oppressed, facilitate empathy with the experiences of others, challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, and other hateful rhetoric, and much more. Informed by recent and leading-edge methodologies within the field, the Companion examines how theoretical approaches to multiethnic literature such as cultural studies, queer studies, ecocriticism, diaspora studies, and posthumanism inform literary scholarship, pedagogy, and curricula in the US and around the world.
* Explores the national, international, and transnational contexts of US ethnic literature
* Addresses how technology and digital access to archival materials are impacting the study, reception, and writing of multiethnic literature
* Discusses how recent developments in critical theory impact the reading and interpretation of multiethnic US literature
* Highlights significant themes and major critical trends in genres including science fiction, drama and performance, literary nonfiction, and poetry
* Includes coverage of multiethnic film, history, and culture as well as newer art forms such as graphic narrative and hip-hop
* Considers various contexts in multiethnic literature such as politics and activism, immigration and migration, and gender and sexuality
 
A Companion to the Multiethnic Literature of the United States is an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers, undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers studying all aspects of the subject