Routledge Research in American Literature and Culture
About the Book Series
This series is our home for cutting-edge, upper-level scholarly studies and edited collections. Titles are characterized by dynamic interventions into established subjects and innovative studies on emerging topics in American Literature and Culture.
Chuck Palahniuk: Postmodern Absurdist
1st Edition
By Carolann North
December 16, 2026
Chuck Palahniuk: Postmodern Absurdist makes a compelling case for Chuck Palahniuk's place in the American postmodern literary canon, positioning his signature absurdist style alongside key American writers such as Melville and Twain as a vital chronicler of American identity and ideology. Spanning ...
Fictionalizing Israel in Jewish-American Literature, 1948–2020s: Love–Hate Relations
1st Edition
By Ohad Reznick
December 03, 2026
Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has occupied a central yet deeply contested place in Jewish-American literature. Celebrated as a refuge after the Holocaust, criticized for its treatment of Palestinians, and imagined as both a source of Jewish renewal and a site of ideological conflict, ...
Central and Eastern Europeans in North American Literature and Culture: Under Western Eyes
1st Edition
Edited
By Mateusz Świetlicki, Dagmara Drewniak, Sylwia Kamińska-Maciąg, Izabella Kimak
November 25, 2026
Central and Eastern Europeans in North American Literature and Culture: Under Western Eyes examines how Central and Eastern Europe and its peoples have been imagined, represented, and reinterpreted in North American literature and culture. Bringing together interdisciplinary scholars from several ...
Violent Sidekicks in Modern American Crime Fiction Series: Hawk, Clete, Pike, Mouse, Bubba, Win
1st Edition
By Terry Keefe
August 30, 2026
Violent Sidekicks in Modern American Crime Fiction Series: Hawk, Clete, Pike, Mouse, Bubba, Win examines six violent sidekicks in contemporary American novels authored by Robert Parker, James Lee Burke, Robert Crais, Walter Mosley, Dennis Lehane, and Harlan Coben. These popular, award-winning ...
Transnational and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Western American Culture: The Nomadic West
1st Edition
Edited
By Ángel Chaparro Sainz
August 26, 2026
The book offers a diverse and rich picture of current research on the literature and culture of the American West. The book privileges transnational and interdisciplinary approaches, aiming to understand how Western iconography has moved well beyond both national limits and literary borders, ...
Colson Whitehead Beyond the Novel: Literary Authority, Authorial Performance, and Canonization
1st Edition
By Valentina López Liendo
August 02, 2026
Colson Whitehead Beyond the Novel: Literary Authority, Authorial Performance, and Canonization traces this author's remarkable trajectory from an acclaimed yet little-known writer to cultural force, examining the workings of contemporary literary authority. By 2026, Whitehead is a household name: ...
The Jew in the American War Novel: 1920s–2020s
1st Edition
By Ohad Reznick
July 19, 2026
This is the first book of its kind to provide an analysis of the representation of Jews in American war novels throughout the long twentieth century. This study delineates the intricate relationship between Jews and wars. Are Jews depicted as draft dodgers or heroes in American war fiction? How do ...
Zen, Meaning, and Craft in Jane Hirshfield's Poetry: Heartshoots
1st Edition
By Deirdre C. Byrne, Garth J. Mason
July 19, 2026
Zen, Meaning, and Craft in Jane Hirshfield’s Poetry: Heartshoots is the first scholarly volume to be dedicated to the large body of work produced by North American Zen poet, Jane Hirshfield. The volume is co-authored by a Zen Buddhist scholar and a poetry scholar, who are both practising poets. Its...
Reimagining the Madame Butterfly Narrative: Asian American Literary Critique
1st Edition
By Huining Ouyang
June 30, 2026
Huining Ouyang’s Reimagining the Madame Butterfly Narrative examines Asian American literary revisions of the Butterfly story since the beginning of American expansionism in Asia. Through textual, intertextual, and contextual analyses, Ouyang demonstrates the ways in which Asian American retellings...
Ben Lerner, Edges of Genre: Poetry, Fiction, Artistic Collaborations
1st Edition
Edited
By Yannicke Chupin, Karim Daanoune
May 28, 2026
Ben Lerner, Edges of Genre: Poetry, Fiction, Artistic Collaborations is the first comprehensive academic study of a major contemporary author. Praised by The New York Times as “the most talented writer of his generation,” Lerner has often been read separately as poet or novelist, yet his work ...
Daisaku Ikeda, Transnationalism, and American Literature: Dialogues of the Heart
1st Edition
Edited
By Anita Patterson
May 28, 2026
Daisaku Ikeda, Transnationalism, and American Literature: Dialogues of the Heart examines the writings of Nichiren Buddhist philosopher, poet, and peacebuilder Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023), focusing on how American literature and transnationalism are integral to the development of his Buddhist ...
Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction: Intersections, Performances, and Functions
1st Edition
By Joseph L. Coulombe
May 21, 2026
Humor and Masculinity in U.S. Fiction offers a pragmatic and theoretically informed model for analyzing how humor and gender intersect in key U.S. texts, bringing much-needed attention to the complex ways that humor can support and/or subvert reductive masculine codes and behaviors. Its argument ...