Philip Roth in Context

This collection of essays, penned by leading scholars on Philip Roth from around the globe, offers new insight into the breadth of contexts that inform his body of work. The collection opens with an overview of Roth's life and literary influences, before turning to important critical, geographical, theoretical, cultural, and historical contexts. The volume closes with focused meditations on the various iterations of Roth's legacy, from the screen to international translations of his work to his signature stylistic imprint on American letters. Together, all of these chapters reveal Roth's range as a writer, as he interrogates American national identity and history, and explores the dimensions of the individual self. Maggie McKinley is Associate Professorof English at Harper College in Illinois. She is the author of Masculinity and the Paradox of Violence in American Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2015) and Understanding Norman Mailer (University of South Carolina Press, 2017). Her work has also appeared in PhilipRoth Studies, Studies in American Jewish Literature, and The Mailer Review, as well as in the edited collections Roth and Celebrity (Lexington, 2012), Critical Insights: Philip Roth (Salem, 2013); and Violence from Slavery to Black Lives Matter: African American History and Representation (Routledge, 2019). She is currently the program director of the Philip Roth Society and the president of the Norman Mailer Society--