Introduction

It has become a commonplace convention to describe Los Angeles as a city of paradox. In his classic Southern California: An Island on the Land, Carey McWilliams describes LA as a "paradoxical land"; in City of Quartz, Mike Davis entitles one of his chapters "Sunshine or Noir?"; and in Land of Smoke and Mirrors Vincent Brook begins his book with a litany of contradictory appellations for the slippery metropolis. From its very inception, Los Angeles has had an elusive and illusive history, leading some to argue that the very history of the city is based on forgetting (Klein). For the writers of this collection, Los Angeles is a city of multiple representations, and in their essays, the writers, who are specialists in English Studies, primarily examine Los Angeles as a discursive site, echoing Kevin McNamara's assertion that Los Angeles is a "city made of words"(1). However, for these essayists, who are all Angelenos, Los Angeles is also a very physical and material city, for they drive the city's crowded freeways, worry about its water shortage, and wonder about the city's economic and social future. The representations that these writers explore—whether William Faulkner's "golden land" or Nathanael West's apocalyptic nightmare—have real material consequences for them. The collection began as a class project, in which each writer first selected a topic on Los Angeles. For some of these authors, their choices originated as personal choices, inspired by personal experiences: worrying about a son with an outlaw love for graffiti, chatting with relatives that worked in the aerospace or entertainment industry, living in ethnically diverse neighborhoods, advocating for environmental issues, or working as educators. The writers then examined their topics through their specific fields of specialization, either literary studies or rhetoric and composition. This collection does not pretend to be exhaustive; rather, the authors write about an eclectic and rich vision of Los Angeles—one that reflects the intersection of their lived experiences and academic lives.