How do our notions of what belongs in “the” American literary canon expose cultural attitudes toward race? Eric J. Sundquist explores this dilemma by joining disparate fields of scholarship on black and white literary cultures in To Wake the Nations: Race in the Making of American Literature (Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1993). There, he intertwines traditions that are too often segregated in critical review. This was one of the most useful books that I read in graduate school for content and method, so it’s worth a revisit. In order to “trace the expressive heritage Read more