End of American Literature

The End of American Literature explores the dynamics and stakes of the late age of print. A time when one day it seems like printed books and bookstores are on the decline, whereas on another it is ebooks and the digital utopia showing signs of slippage. The feeling that something is ending—not that something is beginning—is seen both in our prognostications on the fate of capitalism, democracy, and America as well as in declarations of the end of the book, literature, and theory. The essays here take up these timely topics not with a nostalgic nod to the past or utopian utterances to the future, but rather firmly situated in the expansiveness of the present.