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This summer all first-year students enrolling in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Cincinnati are being asked to read Notes From No Man's Land: American Essays (2009) by Eula Biss. This dynamic essay collection explores issues of identity, place, race and class in the United States. Biss's diversely creative and critical "American essays" blur the boundaries between the personal and the social, memory and history, journalism and literature, academic research and lived experience. In her writing self-criticism co-exists with cultural criticism, and recollections from childhood mingle with information drawn from news reports and scholarly studies. Biss is currently an Artist in Residence at Northwestern University, where she teaches nonfiction writing. She is a founding editor of Essay Press, dedicated to innovative nonfiction. In addition to Notes, Biss has published The Balloonists (2002), a work of fiction, and essays in several journals and edited collections.

Reading Guide