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Literary Criticism’s Road Scholars at the American Century’s Turn
Article first published online: 17 SEP 2009
DOI: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00659.x
© 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Additional Information
How to Cite
Larson, L. E. (2009), Literary Criticism’s Road Scholars at the American Century’s Turn. Literature Compass, 6: 1071–1083. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00659.x
Publication History
- Issue published online: 6 NOV 2009
- Article first published online: 17 SEP 2009
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Abstract
Literary scholarship’s spatial turn has produced a number of studies exploring the site of the road and its automobile culture. This article surveys seven monographs published between 1996 and 2007 that analyze works of American fiction and nonfiction for their representation of highway narratives. These works (by Ronald Primeau, Roger Casey, Kris Lackey, Rowland Sherrill, Deborah Paes de Barros, Katie Mills, and Deborah Clarke) explore the genre’s rendering of mobility, identity, and politics on the 20th-century’s roads of America. The essay compares these analyses for their critical methods and offers a sense of what work remains in the ongoing study of road narratives.