Critical Insights: Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts

Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, the most-taught text

across disciplines according to the MLA, will soon celebrate its

40th anniversary of publication. Over these forty years it has

received much critical attention, as well some rather virulent

attacks. This volume will reconsider past readings of The Woman

Warrior while offering fresh scholarship geared toward

undergraduates and those who teach the text.

We seek original essays of 5,000 words for a collection of

essays that explore Kingston’s groundbreaking The Woman Warrior,

to be published by Grey House Publishing/Salem Press as part of

the Critical Insights series. In line with the expectations of

the series, essays should provide instructors, undergraduates,

and advanced high school students with a comprehensive

introduction to Woman Warrior that they are likely to encounter,

discuss, and study in their classrooms; and help students build

a foundation for studying the work in greater depth by

introducing them to key concepts, contexts, critical approaches,

and critical vocabulary found in scholarship.

Volumes in this series follow a uniform format, including four

introductory essays (each ~5,000 words):

• “Critical Lens” chapter: offers a close reading of Woman

Warrior from a particular critical standpoint;

• “Cultural and Historical Context” chapter: provides a

historical overview of the social and cultural factors affecting

the production and critical discussions of Woman Warrior;

• “Compare/Contrast” chapter: analysis of thematic and stylistic

similarities/differences between Woman Warrior and similar

works;

• “Critical Reception” chapter: surveys major scholarship on

Woman Warrior while addressing major concerns, or aspects, that

scholars have attended to over the years

The collection will also include ten chapters that offer

readings of the text, consider it in various contexts, and/or

explicate in light of important themes in Woman Warrior. Each

essay will be 5,000 words.

Those interested in contributing should send via email a brief

abstract (between 500 – 1,000 words) & two-page CV (highlighting

relevant experience) by November 30, 2015 to the volume editors

at LMoser@Missouristate.edu and kwest@bellarmine.edu.

Acceptance notifications will be sent by December 31, 2015.

Completed essays will be due on or before March 31, 2016, with

the possibility of requests for revisions in the month after

that. Authors of essays will receive an honorarium of $250 and a

copy of the volume (additional copies will likely be available

at a discount).

Kathryn West, Professor and Chair,

kwest@bellarmine.edu

Linda Trinh Moser, Professor,

LMoser@Missouristate.edu