Messy Beginnings: Postcoloniality and Early American Studies

Schueller, M.J., Watts, E. (ed)

ISBN 10: 0813532337 / ISBN 13: 9780813532332

Edité par Rutgers University Press, 2003

A propos de cet article

This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside.This book has soft covers. In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item,550grams, ISBN:9780813532332.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9103061

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Messy Beginnings: Postcoloniality and Early American Studies
• Éditeur: Rutgers University Press
• Date de parution: 2003
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0813532337
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780813532332
• Reliure: Couverture souple
• État de l'article: Poor
• Poids: 550 grammes
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • America

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

When exploring the links between America and postcolonialism, scholars tend to think either in terms of contemporary multiculturalism, or of imperialism since 1898. This narrow view has left more than the two prior centuries of colonizing literary and political culture unexamined.

Messy Beginnings challenges the idea of early America's immunity from issues of imperialism, that its history is not as "clean" as European colonialism. By addressing the literature ranging from the diaries of American women missionaries in the Middle East to the work of Benjamin Franklin and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and through appraisals of key postcolonial theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha, the contributors to this volume explore the applicability of their models to early American culture.

Messy Beginnings argues against the simple concept that the colonization of what became the United States was a confrontation between European culture and the "other." Contributors examine the formation of America through the messy or unstable negotiations of the idea of "nation."

The essays forcefully show that the development of "Americanness" was a raced and classed phenomenon, achieved through a complex series of violent encounters, legal maneuvers, and political compromises. The complexity of early American colonization, where there was not one coherent "nation" to conquer, contradicts the simple label of imperialism used in other lands. The unique approach of Messy Beginnings will reshape both pre-conceived notions of postcolonialism, and how postcolonialists think about the development of the American nation.

À propos de l?auteur

Malini Johar Schueller is a professor of English at the University of Florida and author of US Orientalism: Race, Nation, and Gender in Literature, 1790-1890. Edward Watts is an associate professor of American thought and language at Michigan State University and author of An American Colony: Regionalism and the Roots of Midwestern Culture.