Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist, founding member of the Provincetown Players, best-selling novelist and award-winning short fiction writer, Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) has been recovered from the marginalization of women writers that took place in the post-war period of canon-formation in America. Her recovery, begun by feminist critics and theatre historians in the 1980s, reached a milestone with the 1995 publication of the first collection of critical essays, Susan Glaspell: Essays on Her Theater and Fiction, edited by Linda Ben-Zvi. Since then scholarship has been exploding, with six major books on Glaspell and her work published since the year 2000, several by authors represented here. While Glaspell’s work with the Provincetown Players, 1915-1922, was crucial for the development of American theatre, scholars are now fully realizing the extent to which her stories and novels, as well as all of her plays, reflect a deep engagement with the major literary movements and political events of her age. A realist concerned with issues of social justice and a modernist committed to exploring the psyche, Glaspell through her art provides thoughtful commentary, not only on feminist issues of women and gender, but on war, class, socialism, idealism, aesthetics, ethics and law. Susan Glaspell: New Directions in Critical Inquiry continues the tradition started by Ben-Zvi and brings it up to date, featuring new work in various post-structural critical approaches from leading Glaspell scholars, including Americanists Mary E. Papke and Kristina Hinz-Bode; legal scholar, Patricia L. Bryan; cultural historian, J. Ellen Gainor; feminist biographer, Barbara Ozieblo; performance artist, Lucia V. Sander; and classicist Marie Molnar.Praise for the book: Professor Carpentier’s study of Glaspell’s fiction stands as the most important work on the subject and has led to a renewed interest in the subject. There is growing interest in Glaspell’s writing, and this book should find a solid readership from the following fields: American drama and fiction studies, American studies, Women’s studies, and Cultural Studies. I fully support the project and encourage your press to publish it. Linda Ben-Zvi, Professor of Theatre Studies, Tel Aviv Unviesrity
