Oxford University Press, 1997. Reviewed by Jennifer Hochschild, Department of Politics, Princeton University.
School desegregation meets postmodernist literary analysis.
If this seems an unlikely coupling, it is. Like perhaps many unlikely couplings, most of the time it works, occasionally it soars, and once in a while it stumbles. As in most collections, these essays vary in range, depth, and quality. They also vary in their degree of self-conscious postmodernism, although with one exception they all present the image of a younger generation reflecting sympathetically but critically on the achievement of its almost mythical elders. Sarat sets the tone for the volume clearly in his serviceable introduction.