Overview
The demise of the monarchy and the bodily absence of a King caused a representational crisis in the early republic, forcing the American people to reconstruct the social symbolic order in a new and unfamiliar way. Social historians have routinely understood the Revolution and the early republic as projects dedicated to and productive of reason, with ""the people"" as an orderly and sensible collective at odds with the volatile and unthinking crowd. American Enchantment rejects this traditionally held vision of a rational public sphere, arguing that early Americans dealt with the post-monarchical crisis by engaging in ""civil mysticism,"" not systematic discussion and debate. By evaluating a wide range of social and political rituals and literary and cultural discourses, Sizemore shows how ""enchantment"" becomes a vital mode of enacting the people after the demise of traditional monarchical forms. In works by Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, Catharine Sedgwick, and Nathaniel Hawthorne--as well as in Delaware oral histories, accounts of George Washington's inauguration, and Methodist conversion narratives--enchantment is an experience uniquely capable of producing new forms of popular power and social affiliation. Recognizing the role of enchantment in constituting the people overturns some of the most common-sense assumptions in the post-revolutionary world: above all, that the people are not simply a flesh-and-blood substance, but also a mystical force.
Full Product Details
Author: Assistant Professor Michelle Sizemore (University of Kentucky)
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Imprint: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780190627553
ISBN 10: 0190627557
Publication Date: 23 November 2017
Audience:
General/trade
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General
Format: Undefined
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Sizemore achieves no small feat: advancing an important original contribution to the large body of political theory on the paradox of the people. --Jennifer Greiman, Wake Forest University A strikingly original reimagining of American literary nationalism in the long nineteenth century. --Thomas Allen, University of Ottawa It's an elegant, mature, and well-baked argument, an impressive book, one that insists we take seriously how political practice and theory in the early nation was galvanized both by new republicanism and new evangelicalism. And it's going to make a big impact on the field. --Dana D. Nelson, Vanderbilt University
Author Information
Michelle Sizemore is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Kentucky.
