Overview

Early America Re-Explored is a transatlantic joint venture in which scholars from the United States, England, and Germany re-read and recontextualize American writings from the colonial to the antebellum periods. The authors and topics analyzed range from Winthrop and Puritan rhetorics, the Pynchons and Ha(w)thornes, Puritan missionary discourse, Rowlandson's captivity narrative in the context of Native American history, Scottish-American self-fashioning, the cultural inscription of Ashbridge's autobiography, and the transatlantic subtext of Wheatley's poetry, to the theory and practice of the early American novel, play, and short story, the role of geography books in the construction of American identities, women and Native Americans in Child and Sedgwick, the abolitionist writings of M. Stewart, political dimensions of Bryant's poetry and of the nineteenth-century rogue narrative, technology in antebellum short stories, and postcolonial aspects of Cooper's, Poe's, and Melville's sea fiction. The contributors include J. Achilles, S. Bercovitch, M. Brueckner, V. Carretta, W. Fluck, U. Hebel, F. Kelleter, S. Krause, G. Mackenthun, D. Madsen, S. Matter-Seibel, O. Moore, N. Salisbury, D. Schloss, J. Schoepp, D. Williams, and J. Zanger.

Full Product Details

9780820467047

Table of Contents

Reviews

What makes this collection remarkable is the exemplary way in which the essays embed texts ranging from Winthrop's 'A Model of Christian Charity' to the early American novel and Melville's 'Moby-Dick' in the historical and ideological contexts of particular cultural moments. Rather than offering readings securely entrenched in only the authors' own theoretical assumptions, the essays also engage in a fruitful dialogue with international scholarship. 'Early America Re-Explored' sets up signposts that lead to newly claimed sites in the vast open space of colonial, post-Revolutionary, and antebellum American culture. (Winfried Herget, Johannes Gutenberg-Universitaet Mainz) This admirable collection crosses national and critical boundaries to re-examine early American literature. Written by pioneers in the discipline and a new generation of critics in Europe and America, these essays represent the best of cultural studies and concise literary analysis. ...This collection belongs on every library and study shelf - it will be the starting place for future exploration and re-exploration of the field. (David H. Watters, University of New Hampshire)

« This admirable collection crosses national and critical boundaries to re-examine early American literature. Written by pioneers in the discipline and a new generation of critics in Europe and America, these essays represent the best of cultural studies and concise literary analysis. ... This collection belongs on every library and study shelf - it will be the starting place for future exploration and re-exploration of the field.

Author Information

The Editors: Klaus H. Schmidt teaches American language and literature at the University of Mainz in Germersheim. He is the author of The Outsider's Vision (1994), the editor of Flip Sides (1995), and the co-editor of Blurred Boundaries (1996). Fritz Fleischmann is Professor of English at Babson College and the editor of Margaret Fuller's Cultural Critique: Her Age and Legacy (Peter Lang, 2000).

Tab Content 6

Countries Available