In the nineteenth century, American tourists, scholars, evangelists, writers, and artists flocked to Palestine as part of a "Holy Land mania." Many saw America as a New Israel, a modern nation chosen to do God's work on Earth, and produced a rich variety of inspirational art and literature about their travels in the original promised land, which was then part of Ottoman-controlled Palestine. In American Palestine, Hilton Obenzinger explores two "infidel texts" in this tradition: H...

WITNESS 2017-2020 chronicles four years of troubles, shootings, wildfires,racial reckoning, planetary murder, plague, monumental lies, crazy delusions,#MeToo, an uprising for justice, and more. But a failed far-right insurrection had to be the capstone of these terrible times, and the nation is not done yet. What was once nfamiliar and stran ge ("flatten the curve") has become common, even banal, demanding a poem. Language has to keep up, and Hilton Obenzinger presents a powerful testimony...

First published in 1880, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ became a best-seller. The popular novel spawned an 1899 stage adaptation, reaching audiences of over 10 million, and two highly successful film adaptations. For over a century, it has become a ubiquitous pop cultural presence, representing a deeply powerful story and monumental experience for some and a defining work of bad taste and false piety for others. The first and only collection of essays on this pivotal cultural icon,...

Omerta: Selected Poems by Les Gottesman gathers a selection of his poems from 2006 to 2019 as well as earlier works from the 1960s and 70s. Les Gottesman's poems straddle the New York School and San Francisco Beat literary scenes with his own uniquely comic, surrealist sensibility. He resumed his career as poet and editor in the early 2000s, after he devoted decades as an educator and radical political activist. As poet and playwright Genny Lim explains in the Preface, "Les Gottesman's wil...