Subjects and Citizens: Nation, Race, and Gender from Oroonoko to Anita HillMichael Moon, Cathy N. Davidson Focusing on intersecting issues of nation, race, and gender, this volume inaugurates new models for American literary and cultural history. Subjects and Citizens reveals the many ways in which a wide range of canonical and non-canonical writing contends with the most crucial social, political, and literary issues of our past and present. Defining the landscape of the New American literary history, these essays are united by three interrelated concerns: ideas of origin (where does "American literature" begin?), ideas of nation (what does "American literature" mean?), and ideas of race and gender (what does "American literature" include and exclude and how?). Work by writers as diverse as Aphra Behn, James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Frances Harper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Bharati Mukherjee, Booker T. Washington, Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Américo Paredes, and Toni Morrison are discussed from several theoretical perspectives, using a variety of methodologies. Issues of the "frontier" and the "border" as well as those of coloniality and postcoloniality are explored. In each case, these essays emphasize the ideological nature of national identity and, more specifically, the centrality of race and gender to our concept of nationhood. Collected from recent issues of American Literature, with three new essays added, Subjects and Citizens charts the new directions being taken in American literary studies. Contributors. Daniel Cooper Alarcón, Lori Askeland, Stephanie Athey, Nancy Bentley, Lauren Berlant, Michele A. Birnbaum, Kristin Carter-Sanborn, Russ Castronovo, Joan Dayan, Julie Ellison, Sander L. Gilman, Karla F. C. Holloway, Annette Kolodny, Barbara Ladd, Lora Romero, Ramón Saldívar, Maggie Sale, Siobhan Senier, Timothy Sweet, Maurice Wallace, Elizabeth Young |
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African American American Literature Anita Hill antebellum argues autobiography becomes Black Hawk black women Bleecker body Brown Civil claim colonial color construction context Coyote creole critical cultural death discourse disease domestic dominant Douglass Edna Edna's enslaved essay European fantasy feminine feminist feminization fiction figure Frederick Douglass freedom frontier gender genre Harper Hawk's heroic honor identity ideology Imoinda Indian Iola Leroy Jacobs Jacobs's Jasmine Jews Junco Keokuk language literary history masculine metaphor Mexican Mexican American mother Mulatto narrative narrator Native American Negro novel Oroonoko Ouabi Oxford Univ Paredes's patriarchal Poe's poems political Press quadroon race racial racism rape representation represents rhetoric role Sauk scene sentimental sexual slave slavery social South Southern story Stowe Stowe's suggests tion Toni Morrison tradition transformation Twain Uncle Tom's Cabin violence warrior Washington white women William Wells Brown woman writing York Zuni