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"Maxey, Ruth"
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The Rise of the “We” Narrator in Modern American Fiction
Historically, the first-person plural narrator has been rare in US fiction, and it is both enigmatic and technically demanding. Yet an increasing number of American novelists and short story writers have turned to this formal device over the past 20 years and particularly since 9/11. How might one account for this rise in “we” narration, a trend that surprisingly few commentators have identified, questioned or examined at any length? What are the implications of telling a story in this difficult, even risky way? And in light of the formal challenges it poses to reader as well as writer, why have contemporary works of fiction that are told collectively often been critically and commercially successful? In this essay, I will attempt to answer such questions, examining how US writers from William Faulkner to Jeffrey Eugenides, and Kate Walbert to Julie Otsuka have used the collective narrator in short stories and longer fiction and finally reflecting upon the use of “we” in recent American political discourse.
Journal Article
Understanding Bharati Mukherjee
\"Bharati Mukherjee was an important, bold, pioneering American writer. Born in Calcutta, India on July 27, 1940 to Sudhir Lal Mukherjee and Bina (née Chatterjee), a Bengali Brahmin couple, the young Bharati--the middle of three daughters--enjoyed a privileged early life. Mukherjee's father was a biochemist who ran a successful pharmaceutical company and supported a wide network of some fifty relatives all based within the same house in Ballygunge, south Calcutta. A precociously intelligent child, Mukherjee was always highly literate, stimulated by her parents to read and study. Consuming books in a quiet corner was often a refuge from the claustrophobic demands of traditional Indian joint family living, and she began writing stories as a young child. Mukherjee was inspired by the storytelling of her paternal grandmother and her mother. Indeed, she consistently paid tribute to Bina, who proudly defended and encouraged Mukherjee and her two sisters, Mira and Ranu, against a patriarchal backdrop of ridicule from Bina's older, female in-laws for having borne Sudhir no sons\"-- Provided by publisher.
BOOK
Animals in the Writing of Bharati Mukherjee
James Kim argues that \"despite long noting the links between animalisation and racialisation, critical animal studies have yet to consider their relationship to Asian American studies\" (136). Relating to this wider scholarly gap, studies of the South Asian American writer Bharati Mukherjee (1940–2017) have yet to examine the importance of fauna within her œuvre. Tracing specific animal metaphors—from avian to marine mammalian and reptilian to canine—this essay confronts that critical silence via close textual analysis and the use of critical animal studies as a theoretical lens. It compares Mukherjee's recurrent, often intertextual and interreferential use of such tropes and interrogates the cultural and gendered associations of animals evoked by her fiction and essays. Writing Indian animal imagery into American literature, Mukherjee's neglected creaturely motifs signify the power of dreams, the fall of the Mughal Empire in India, human communities as endangered species, and predator versus prey dynamics within a Darwinian logic of survival. A shorthand for both India and the United States, animal metaphors expose a brutal world of danger, inequality, and corruption.
Journal Article
Bharati Mukherjee and the Politics of the Anthology
Literary anthologies are inherently problematic, privileging certain genres and shorter texts and threatening to reduce the complexity of literature by decontextualising it. Their racialised and gendered omissions pose particular difficulties. Applying such questions to the work of Bharati Mukherjee (1940-2017), the first major South Asian American writer, the author examines the relationship of her fiction to both ‘mainstream’and ‘minority’ North American literature anthologies. The essay interrogates the politics driving the repeated inclusion of certain stories but not others in given collections, and considers Mukherjee’s place in future literary anthologies.
Journal Article
An Interview with Meena Alexander
Maxey interviews poet Meena Alexander regarding several matters including the task of poetry and her transition to work between genres. Among other things, Alexander says the task of poetry is in some way to reconcile everyone to the world and to allow a measure of tenderness and grace with which to exist.
Journal Article
Divine Feminine Leadership Praxis: A Qualitative Analysis of the Craft
In this thesis, I examine divine feminine leadership praxis through the lens of systems thinking, leadership, and change management theory. Using the decolonized methodology of generationally practiced witchcraft ceremonies and moon magic, I sought to build my own divine feminine leadership praxis and discuss how the application of this paradigm might address and heal trauma while also effecting system change. I collected qualitative data over the course of 28 days, or a full lunar and menstrual cycle, also referred to as the moon cycle. I thematically analyzed and synthesized qualitative data gathered through reflexive and arts-based journaling and in dialogue sessions with feedback partners by way of grounded theory. I engaged participants from my faith community and dialogued with these witches about their experiences and my own experiences of making change. The results indicate that; being a witch is equally a spiritual orientation and a political stance, gathering in sister circles amplifies this cultural norm and is a determinant of health, and using imagination and storytelling can engage children in the discussion, as a strategy to pass teachings to future generations. Keywords: leadership, system change, witchcraft, women
Dissertation
Tom Perrotta in Conversation about Literary Adaptation
What would you say are the key differences in thematic, aesthetic, and narrative terms between the literary and screen versions of Little Children and Election? The film version of Little Children has a literal voice that is distilled from the basic third-person narrative of the novel. When can we hope to see the film version of The Abstinence Teacher and how have you found writing the screenplay for this latest adaptation?
Journal Article