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Unsettling the Bildungsroman
Reading Contemporary Ethnic American Womenâs Fiction
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What kinds of uncertainties and desires do generic issues evoke? How can we account for the continuing hold of the Bildungsroman as a model of analysis? Unsettling the Bildungsroman: Reading Contemporary Ethnic American Womenâs Fiction combines genre and cultural theory and offers a cross-ethnic comparative approach to the tradition of the female novel of development and the American coming-of-age narrative. Examining closely the work of Jamaica Kincaid, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Audre Lorde, the chapters foreground processes of constructing an alternative âart of livingâ which challenges the Bildungsromanâs drive for either assimilation or ethnic homogeneity and pushes for new configurations of ethnic and American female identity. Drawing on feminist/gender studies, psychoanalytic theory, translation theory, queer theory, and disability studies, the book provides a theoretically engaged rethinking of the Bildungsromanâs form and function. Addressing questions of aesthetics and politics, freedom and belonging, betrayal and responsibility, and tracing the Bildungsromanâs links with life-writing forms such as immigrant narrative, mother-daughter story, biomythography, and illness narrative, the study outlines the various ways in which the novel of individual development becomes an appropriate site for the negotiation of several enduring and contentious tensions in ethnic American writing. Of potential interest to scholars of American literature, but also ethnic, feminist and postcolonial literatures, and to students of American literature and culture, the book demonstrates the Bildungsromanâs ongoing relevance and expanded capacity of representation in an ethnic American and postcolonial context.
"Unsettling the Bildungsroman presents in a lucid and well sustained manner alternative stories of growing up and belonging that ultimately rewrite 'Americanness' and challenge the idea of finished Bildung." - Chrysavgi Papayianni, in: European Journal of American Studies (2012)
"Bolaki brings into her book life-writing and narratives of trauma, illness, and death in order to reinvigorate the debate around the Bildungsroman." - Ania Spyra, in: New West Indian Guide, Vol 87 (2013), pp.3-4
"Bolaki reaffirms the Bildungsromanâs enduring viability, versatility, and socio-political function. This is an important task at a time when 'being American' so often involves building walls, closing borders, and policing the bodies of others." - Myra Mendible, in: Postcolonial Tekst, Vol 7 (2012), p.2
"Bolaki brings into her book life-writing and narratives of trauma, illness, and death in order to reinvigorate the debate around the Bildungsroman." - Ania Spyra, in: New West Indian Guide, Vol 87 (2013), pp.3-4
"Bolaki reaffirms the Bildungsromanâs enduring viability, versatility, and socio-political function. This is an important task at a time when 'being American' so often involves building walls, closing borders, and policing the bodies of others." - Myra Mendible, in: Postcolonial Tekst, Vol 7 (2012), p.2
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Female travelling in the West/Indies: trauma and bound motion in Jamaica Kincaidâs At the Bottom of the River and Lucy
âThe mestiza wayâ: a Bildung of the borderlands in Sandra Cisnerosâs The House on Mango Street
âIt translated wellâ: the promise and the perils of translation in Maxine Hong Kingstonâs The Woman Warrior
âIn the name of grand asymmetriesâ: body Bildung in Audre Lordeâs work
Postscript: temporary stopovers and new departures
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
Female travelling in the West/Indies: trauma and bound motion in Jamaica Kincaidâs At the Bottom of the River and Lucy
âThe mestiza wayâ: a Bildung of the borderlands in Sandra Cisnerosâs The House on Mango Street
âIt translated wellâ: the promise and the perils of translation in Maxine Hong Kingstonâs The Woman Warrior
âIn the name of grand asymmetriesâ: body Bildung in Audre Lordeâs work
Postscript: temporary stopovers and new departures
Notes
Bibliography
Index