The Fiction of America juxtaposes classic literature of the American Renaissance with twentieth-century popular culture-pairing, for instance, Ralph Waldo Emerson with Finding Nemo, Walt Whitman with Spider-man, and Hester Prynne with Madonna - to investigate how the "Americanness" of American culture constitutes itself in the interplay of the cultural imaginary and performance. Conceptualizing "America" as a transhistorical practice, Susanne Hamscha reveals disruptive, spectral moments in the narrative of "America" that confront American culture with its inherent inconsistencies.