Themes - American Voices

Identity

Edge

Promise

Identity, Promise, Edge

To truly explore the notion of an American Voice, it was essential to dig down into some of the underlying themes that tie American writers together. In developing this museum and this exhibit, a great many content leaders and subject matter experts were consulted, and three themes emerged from those conversation. Each of these larger themes break down into three more specific ideas, so take some time to explore and consider these ideas in comparison of your own thoughts on what makes American writing distinctive and different.

Watch the introductory videos below to decide which theme to explore, or use the menu if you know where you’d like to begin.

Delve into Identity with Ilan Stavans

CONTENT LEADERSHIP TEAM

Marie Arana
Author; Literary Critic; Senior Advisor to the Library of Congress

Dr. Reginald Gibbons
Francis Hooper Professor of Arts and Humanities, Northwestern University

Leonard Marcus
Author, Critic, and Children’s Book Historian

Max Rudin
Publisher for Library of America

Donna Seaman
Senior Editor, “Booklist,” American Library Association

Natasha Trethewey
Poet, US Poet Laureate 2012 and 2013

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS

Susan Abbotson
Professor of English, Rhode Island College; Board member and former President, Arthur Miller Society; Performance Editor, Arthur Miller Journal; Author

Ted Atkinson
Associate Professor, Department of English, Mississippi State University; Author; Editor, Mississippi Quartlerly

Jonathan Barron
Department of English, University of Southern Missisippi; Director, The Robert Frost Society; Author

Ann Blair
Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor of History, Harvard University

Matthew M. Briones
Associate Professor of US History, University of Chicago; Specialist in Asian American and African American history

Lynn Brown
Retired middle school English teacher

Toni-Lee Capossela
Retired college writing professor; Former Director of the Stonehill College Writing Center

Cinnamon Catlin-Lugutko
President/CEO, Abbe Museum, Bar Harbor, ME; Specialist in Wabanaki Nation

Michael W. Clune
Samuel B. and Virginia C. Knight Professor of the Humanities, Department of English, Case Western Reserve University

Maureen Corrigan
The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Literary Criticism at Georgetown University, Journalist, Author, and Literary Critic, The Washington Post, NPR

Wai Chee Dimock
William Lampson Professor of English & American Studies, Yale University; Author

Paul Durica
Director of Programs at Illinois Humanities

Thomas Dyja
Author

Roderick Ferguson
Professor of African American Studies, Gender & Women’s Studies, Co-Director of Racialized Body research cluster, University of Illinois, Chicago; Author

Shelley Fisher Fishkin
Joseph S. Atha Professor in Humanities, Stanford University

Dr. Ed Folsom
Roy J. Carver Professor of English, The University of Iowa; Editor, Walt Whitman Quarterly Review; Director, Walt Whitman Archive

Sandra Gilbert
Professor of English, University of California, Davis

Reed Gochberg
PhD Candidate, Department of English, Boston University

Jacqueline Goldsby
Professor of English & African American Studies, Yale University

Brad Gooch
Professor of English, William Paterson University; Author

David D. Hall
Bartlett Research Professor of New England Church History, Harvard Divinity School; Co-editor of The History of the Book in America

Ronne Hartfield
Writer; Museum Consultant

David Kipen
Getty/Annenberg Arts Fellow, University of Southern California

Jill Lepore
Author, New Yorker contributor, David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History and Harvard College Professor, Harvard University

Jessica Maciejewski
Chicago high school English teacher; Special Education training

Emily Orlando
Professor, Fairfield University; President, Edith Wharton Society; Author

Dr. Kimberly Parker
Engllish Department Faculty, Cambridge Rindge & Latin School

Robert Polito
Director, MFA Writing Program and Professor of Writing, The New School President, Poetry Foundation, 2012-2015

Leah Price
Francis Lee Higginson Professor of English, Harvard University

Jesse Raber
Adjunct Faculty, Loyola University Chicago and School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Kathryn Roberts
Doctoral Candidate, Department of English, Harvard University; Specialist in 20th- & 21st-century American literature, transatlantic modernism, regional & ethnic literary traditions

John Russick
Vice President for Interpretation and Education, Chicago History Museum

Carolyn Saper
Education Consultant Specializing in Children’s Literature and Curriculum

Bill Savage
Associate Professor of Instruction in English, Northwestern University

Will Shortz
Puzzle Master; NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday”; Crossword Editor, The New York Times

Grant Shreve
Doctoral Candidate, Department of English, Johns Hopkins University; specialist in 19th- & 20th- century literature, published in American Literature and Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies

Scott Slovic
Professor and Chair of English Department, University of Idaho; Specialist in environmental literature; Editor, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment; Author

Dr. Werner Sollors
Retired Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English Literature and Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Ilan Stavans
Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture, Amherst College

Todd Tietchen
Assistant Professor in English, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Cheryl Wall
Board of Governors Zora Neale Hurston Professor of English, Rutgers University; Editor of Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Casebook

David Weimer
Librarian for Cartographic Collections and Learning, Harvard Libraries, Harvard University

Ted Widmer, PhD
Speechwriter; Former Director and librarian of the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University

Ivy Wilson
Associate Professor of English and Director of American Studies, Northwestern University

Kelly Wisecup
Assistant Professor, Department of English, Northwestern University; Specialist in Native American Literature

Gary K. Wolfe
Professor of Humanities, Roosevelt University

Carol A. Worsham
Retired middle school English teacher, Cambridge Public Schools

Sunny Yudkoff
Senior Lecturer in Yiddish, Department of German Studies, University of Chicago