Notes that the hopeful threads binding Herman Melville's book "The Confidence-Man" also weave a valuable lesson for literature PhDs considering their career options. Suggests that the values crucial to a teacher or scholar are also crucial to those who work outside the university: willingness to entertain other points of view and an…

Shows how teaching "The Bluest Eye" not only helps students learn about the time period of the novel and its relevant issues and techniques, but also helps them to understand themselves. Shows how it can fit into contemporary literature classes, introductory courses to fiction or literature, or into women's literature classes. (EL)

Contains an annotated bibliography of African American literature (published between 1989 and 1994), including anthologies, fiction, poetry, drama, criticism, cultural studies, biography, interviews, and letters. (TB)

Argues that the relationship between Lily and Mrs. Ramsey in Woolf's "To the Lighthouse" is a form of the Oedipal story. According to the theory, Lily must resist Mrs. Ramsey's effort to entice her into the traditional female role and recognize that she can be separate from Mrs. Ramsey's world and still love her. (JC)