Böcker av Tony Hilfer

In a critique of the full range of theoretical discourses that have come into favour in literary studies since the 1960s, this work shows that these forms of criticism present themselves as unquestionable - ways of thinking that are too self-evident to need arguing or evidence.

Part of the "Longman Literature in English" series, this text examines American fiction between 1940 and 1991. Amongst the areas covered are the emergence of African American Fiction, Southern Fiction, Jewish American Fiction, postmodernism as Black humour and fiction by women.

Drawing upon the philosophical theories of William James, Dewey, and Mead and focusing upon major works by Whitman, Stein, Howells, Dreiser, and Henry James, Anthony Hilfer explores how these authors have structured their characters' consciousness, their purpose in doing so, and how this presentation controls the reader's moral response.

Hilfer offers convincing evidence that the crime novel should be regarded as a genre distinct from the detective novel, whose conventions it subverts to develop conventions of its own.