Experimental texts empower the reader by encouraging self-governing approaches to reading & by placing the reader on equal footing with the author.Everybody's Autonomyis about reading & identity.Contemporary avant garde writinghas often been overlooked by those who study literature & identity. Such writing has been perceived as unrelated, as disrespectful of subjectivity. ButEverybody's Autonomyinstead locates withinavant garde literaturemodels of identity that are communal, connective, & racially concerned.Everybody's Autonomy, as it tackles literary criticism's central question of what sort of selves do works create, looks at works that encourage connection, works that present & engage with large, public worlds that are in turn shared with readers.With this intent, it aligns the iconoclastic work ofGertrude Steinwith foreign, immigrant Englishes & their accompanying subjectivities. It examines the critique of white individualism & privilege in the work of language writersLyn Hejinian&Bruce Andrews. It looks at howHarryette Mullenmixes language writing's open text with the distinctivesness of African-American culture to propose a communal, yet still racially conscious identity. And it examinesTheresa Hak Kyung Cha'suse of broken English & French to unsettle readers' fluencies & assimilating comprehensions, to decolonize reading. Such works, the book argues, well represent & expand changing notions of the public, of everybody.