Self-othering in American Literature and Culture from Melville to Moby

Self-othering in American Literature and Culture from Melville to Moby PDF Author: Craig Allan Svonkin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 844

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Self-othering in American Literature and Culture from Melville to Moby

Self-othering in American Literature and Culture from Melville to Moby PDF Author: Craig Allan Svonkin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 844

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Book Description


Dissertation Abstracts International

Dissertation Abstracts International PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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The Interpretation of Otherness

The Interpretation of Otherness PDF Author: Giles B. Gunn
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195024532
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
In a unique and probing analysis, this study examines the function of literary criticism in religious studies and explores the relation of literature to religion in the works of major American writers.

Solitude and Society in the Works of Herman Melville and Edith Wharton

Solitude and Society in the Works of Herman Melville and Edith Wharton PDF Author: Linda C. Cahir
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313029970
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
The interplay between solitude and society was a particularly persistent theme in nineteenth-century American literature, though writers approached this theme in different ways. Poe explored the metaphysical significance of isolation and held solitude in high esteem; Hawthorne viewed the theme in moral terms and examined the obligation of each individual to the larger community; and Emerson maintained that the contradictory states of self-reliance and solidarity are fundamental to human happiness. Herman Melville emerged with an ontological response to this issue. Questioning the nature of being, he argued that humans are essentially isolated creatures. While he grants that we are free to choose how we conduct our lives, whether in solitude or in society, we cannot escape the essential condition of our alienation. Thus in Moby-Dick, he coins the term Isolato to signify the inherent separateness of all individuals. Writing some fifty years later, Edith Wharton reached the same conclusion. This book argues that Wharton's views on solitude and society were strongly parallel to those of Melville. Scholars have generally held that Wharton was primarily influenced by the great English, French, and Russian writers of the nineteenth century; and that with the exception of Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry James, she neglected the influence of American literature almost entirely. This study demonstrates that Wharton read a significant portion of Melville's writings, that she reflected on the nature and achievement of his works, and that her consideration of his importance emerged during very significant moments in her life, when she was forced to grapple with her own place as an individual in relation to a larger community. Though Melville and Wharton initially seem disparate, this book shows that they had much in common. By studying the two authors side by side, this volume reveals that they shared a similar way of seeing the world, particularly with respect to their considerations of solitude and society. Through their solitary characters, Melville and Wharton question the relationship of self and society and thus engage a universal problem of special interest to the nineteenth century.

The Poetics and Politics of Hospitality in U.S. Literature and Culture

The Poetics and Politics of Hospitality in U.S. Literature and Culture PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004408045
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The Poetics and Politics of Hospitality in U.S. Literature and Culture explores hospitality in literature, language and cinema from a variety of methodological perspectives that illustrate the richness of American hospitality.

White Bound

White Bound PDF Author: Matthew Hughey
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804783314
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
Discussions of race are inevitably fraught with tension, both in opinion and positioning. Too frequently, debates are framed as clear points of opposition—us versus them. And when considering white racial identity, a split between progressive movements and a neoconservative backlash is all too frequently assumed. Taken at face value, it would seem that whites are splintering into antagonistic groups, with differing worldviews, values, and ideological stances. White Bound investigates these dividing lines, questioning the very notion of a fracturing whiteness, and in so doing offers a unique view of white racial identity. Matthew Hughey spent over a year attending the meetings, reading the literature, and interviewing members of two white organizations—a white nationalist group and a white antiracist group. Though he found immediate political differences, he observed surprising similarities. Both groups make meaning of whiteness through a reliance on similar racist and reactionary stories and worldviews. On the whole, this book puts abstract beliefs and theoretical projection about the supposed fracturing of whiteness into relief against the realities of two groups never before directly compared with this much breadth and depth. By examining the similarities and differences between seemingly antithetical white groups, we see not just the many ways of being white, but how these actors make meaning of whiteness in ways that collectively reproduce both white identity and, ultimately, white supremacy.

Not Altogether Human

Not Altogether Human PDF Author: Richard Hardack
Publisher: Univ of Massachusetts Press
ISBN: 1558499571
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Many leading American thinkers in the nineteenth century, who accepted the premises of Emersonian transcendentalism, valued the basic concept of pantheism: that God inheres in nature and in all things, and that a person could achieve a sense of belonging she or he lacked in society by seeking a oneness with all of nature. As Richard Hardack shows, however, writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville conceived of nature as everything "Other"--other than the white male Protestant culture of which they were a part. This conception of nature, then, became racialized, and the divine became associated with African American and Native American identities, as well as with femininity. In "Not Altogether Human," Hardack reevaluates transcendentalism in the context of nineteenth-century concerns about individual and national racial identity. Elucidating the influence of pantheism, Hardack draws on an array of canonical and unfamiliar materials to remap the boundaries of what has long been viewed as white male transcendental discourse. This book significantly revises notions of what transcendentalism and pantheism mean and how they relate to each other. Hardack's close analysis of pantheism and its influence on major works and lesser known writing of the nineteenth century opens up a new perspective on American culture during this key moment in the country's history.

Hearts of Darkness: Melville, Conrad and Narratives of Oppression

Hearts of Darkness: Melville, Conrad and Narratives of Oppression PDF Author: Paweł Jędrzejko
Publisher: M-Studio
ISBN: 8362023406
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
The volume came about as a result of a joint effort at a bifocal reflection of the international community of Melvillians and Conradians in Szczecin, Poland, in August 2007. What became clear in formal and informal discussion among the participants of that international gam was that Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski shared the intuition that the essential liquidity of the existential human condition necessitates a “universal squeeze of the hand.” This idea, beautifully conceptualized by Melville in chapter 94 of Moby-Dick, caused both writers to examine in their complex narratives the ways in which various kinds of oppression prevent this desired possibility (read more in the Introduction).

Culture and Imperialism

Culture and Imperialism PDF Author: Edward W. Said
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307829650
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
A landmark work from the author of Orientalism that explores the long-overlooked connections between the Western imperial endeavor and the culture that both reflected and reinforced it. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as the Western powers built empires that stretched from Australia to the West Indies, Western artists created masterpieces ranging from Mansfield Park to Heart of Darkness and Aida. Yet most cultural critics continue to see these phenomena as separate. Edward Said looks at these works alongside those of such writers as W. B. Yeats, Chinua Achebe, and Salman Rushdie to show how subject peoples produced their own vigorous cultures of opposition and resistance. Vast in scope and stunning in its erudition, Culture and Imperialism reopens the dialogue between literature and the life of its time.

The Cambridge History of Native American Literature

The Cambridge History of Native American Literature PDF Author: Melanie Benson Taylor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108643183
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 927

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Book Description
Native American literature has always been uniquely embattled. It is marked by divergent opinions about what constitutes authenticity, sovereignty, and even literature. It announces a culture beset by paradox: simultaneously primordial and postmodern; oral and inscribed; outmoded and novel. Its texts are a site of political struggle, shifting to meet external and internal expectations. This Cambridge History endeavors to capture and question the contested character of Indigenous texts and the way they are evaluated. It delineates significant periods of literary and cultural development in four sections: “Traces & Removals” (pre-1870s); “Assimilation and Modernity” (1879-1967); “Native American Renaissance” (post-1960s); and “Visions & Revisions” (21st century). These rubrics highlight how Native literatures have evolved alongside major transitions in federal policy toward the Indian, and via contact with broader cultural phenomena such, as the American Civil Rights movement. There is a balance between a history of canonical authors and traditions, introducing less-studied works and themes, and foregrounding critical discussions, approaches, and controversies.