Transnational Na(rra)tion
Home and Homeland in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, American, Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, 19th Century, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology
| Author: | John Dolis | ISBN: | 9781611478167 |
| Publisher: | Fairleigh Dickinson University Press | Publication: | May 12, 2015 |
| Imprint: | Fairleigh Dickinson University Press | Language: | English |
| Author: | John Dolis |
| ISBN: | 9781611478167 |
| Publisher: | Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |
| Publication: | May 12, 2015 |
| Imprint: | Fairleigh Dickinson University Press |
| Language: | English |
This book examines American literary texts whose portrayal of "American" identity involves the incorporation of a "foreign body" as the precondition for a comprehensive understanding of itself. This nexus of disconcerting textual dynamics arises precisely insofar as both citizen/subject and national identity depend upon a certain alterity, an "other" which constitutes the secondary term of a binary structure. "American" identity thus finds itself ironically con-fused and interwoven with another culture or another nation, double-crossed in the enactment of itself. Individual chapters are devoted to Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, Frederick Douglass, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark Twain.
This book examines American literary texts whose portrayal of "American" identity involves the incorporation of a "foreign body" as the precondition for a comprehensive understanding of itself. This nexus of disconcerting textual dynamics arises precisely insofar as both citizen/subject and national identity depend upon a certain alterity, an "other" which constitutes the secondary term of a binary structure. "American" identity thus finds itself ironically con-fused and interwoven with another culture or another nation, double-crossed in the enactment of itself. Individual chapters are devoted to Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, Frederick Douglass, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark Twain.
