Editorial

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Each essay was reviewed by knowledgeable scholars in the area with which the essay is concerned. The second yearly issue of Xchanges, published in November, is a proceedings from the annual Y|X conference (held at Wayne State University in March).

Issue Two presents these essays by graduate student scholars, addressing a range of themes related to the central focus of this issue: "American Originals, American Adaptations." The ways in which the three authors engage with this theme are thoughtful and forward-looking, urging readers to interrogate the very notions of "originality" and textual stasis. That the "adaptations" and "originals" discussed in this issue are American originals or American adaptations allows us to inquire into the manners in which we continually try to "make the old new again"; American literatures and writings about America are often concerned with the involvement of history in modern life (the desire to generate a continuum). The three essays here consider, and complicate, this continuum.

The essays in this issue are Susan Kerns's "O Homer, Where Art Thou?: A Greek Classic Becomes an American Original," Andrea Wild's "The Suicide of the Author and his Reincarnation in the Reader: Intertextuality in The Hours by Michael Cunningham," and Natalie Wilson's "Flannery O'Connor's Corporeal Fiction Re-Materialized in the Works of Katherine Dunn, Elizabeth McCracken, and George Saunders." Kerns examines the ways in which the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000) redeploys Homeric epic tropes in pertinent and evocative ways, ways deserving of critical attention and discussion. Kerns addresses the Coen brothers' film as a "tribute to the American South during the Great Depression" while offering incisive commentary regarding the carefully selected soundtrack’s function as an analogue for the Homeric lyre. O Brother, Where Art Thou, for Kerns, is an illuminating and provocative filmic examination of an American hero myth. In her study of The Hours, Wild situates Cunningham's text as an intertextual study that calls upon the reader to figure as a central participant. In his reworking of Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Cunningham adapts/adopts (Wild's key terms) both Woolf's thematic devices and narrative style to propel a decidedly postmodern text. The Hours, Wild proves, becomes, despite its connection to Mrs. Dalloway, an American original. Wild's essay is a lucid and thorough examination of a text deserving of increased scholarly attention. Natalie Wilson argues that Flannery O'Connor’s trope of the bodily grotesque is redeployed in the work of several contemporary authors, including Dunn, McCracken, and Saunders. By using carefully selected text passages from each of her chosen authors, Wilson shows that O'Connor’s focus on the corporeal has become a model for the grotesque societal critique that persists in contemporary fiction. Wilson's essay is a deft examination of the specific reverberations of O'Connor’s trope of societal and bodily deformation.

We hope you enjoy Issue Two of Xchanges. The essays here demonstrate the ambivalent notions of originality, influence, adaptation, and their emergence in certain American texts. Please look for Issue Three of Xchanges, the proceedings of the up-coming Y|X Conference, to be available online in November 2002. The conference (which will be held on March 29, 2002) will focus on the theme "Border Crossings and the Limits of Identity" and the proceedings will be comprised of the selected conference papers. The Call for Papers and the theme for the next open issue of Xchanges, Issue Four, will be available in early December 2002 on this website. We thank you for your support of Xchanges and the Y|X project.