From deep within the ring of fire, burning logs, and smoldering ash, grows a tale of an adventurous boy and a magical discovery. Nat is a young boy who lives with his family in Sutter, a small village in the Kingdom of Westerford. Like all children his age, Nat loves to play “knights” with his friends. He dreams of one day becoming a knight himself and serving the noble King Edgar. Nat’s other favorite activity is exploring the nearby forest where, one day, he, quite literally, stumbles upon a giant egg. When the egg finally hatches, so does a series of events that leads to the fulfillment of Nat’s wildest dreams. This is the story of two young friends who take on adventures to save the kingdom. With his best friend, Danby, by his side what could possibly go wrong? The Tales of Westerford: Dragons, Knights and Kings is a collection of stories born in the campfire tradition and meant to be shared aloud with family and friends. Watch as the flames come to life before the children’s eyes with the adventures of Nat and Danby and the Knights and Kings of Westerford.
Pick up a work of typical literary criticism and you know what to expect: prose that is dry, pedantic, well-meaning but tedious—slow-going and essentially humorless. But why should that be so? Why can’t more literary criticism have a political edge and be engaging and fast-paced? Why can’t it include drama, personal narrative, and even humor? Why can’t criticism become an artistic performance, rather than just a discussion of art? Art as Performance, Story as Criticism is Craig Womack’s answer to these questions. Inventive and often outrageous, the book turns traditional literary criticism on its head, rejecting distanced, purely theoretical argumentation for intimate engagement with literary works. Focusing on Native American literature, Womack mixes forms and styles. He is unafraid to combine meticulous research and carefully considered historical perspectives with personal reactions and reflections. The book opens with a short story, “The Song of Roe Náld,” in which a Native filmmaker loses control of his movie project, in part because of his homoerotic attraction to its star. The following chapters, or “mus(e)ings,” include original dramas, while others more closely resemble traditional literary criticism, such as essays discussing the lesser-known plays of Lynn Riggs and the stories of Durango Mendoza. Still other chapters defy easy categorization, such as the piece “Caught in the Current, Clinging to a Twig,” in which Womack interweaves historical analysis of the state of the Creek Nation in 1908 with a vivid recreation of the last day on earth of Creek poet Alexander Posey. Throughout the book, the author offers his take on such controversial issues as the Cherokee freedmen issue and the ban on gay marriage. In being different, Womack seeks to breathe new life into literary analysis and in-troduce criticism to a wider audience. Radical, groundbreaking, and refreshing, Art as Performance, Story as Criticism reinvents literary criticism for the twenty-first century.
As a literary genre, academic fiction has emerged in recent years as one of the most popular modes for satirizing the cultural conflicts and sociological nuances inherent in campus life. Drawing upon recent insights in ethical criticism and moral philosophy, Postwar Academic Fiction: Satire, Ethics, Community offers new readings of fictional and nonfictional works by such figures as Kingsley Amis, Vladimir Nabokov, Joyce Carol Oates, David Lodge, David Mamet, Ishmael Reed, Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar and Jane Smiley.
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