Overview

Writing a new page in the surprisingly long history of literary deceit, Impostors examines a series of literary hoaxes, deceptions that involved flagrant acts of cultural appropriation. This book looks at authors who posed as people they were not, in order to claim a different ethnic, class, or other identity. These writers were, in other words, literary usurpers and appropriators who trafficked in what Christopher L. Miller terms the “intercultural hoax.” In the United States, such hoaxes are familiar. Forrest Carter’s The Education of Little Tree and JT LeRoy’s Sarah are two infamous examples. Miller’s contribution is to study hoaxes beyond our borders, employing a comparative framework and bringing French and African identity hoaxes into dialogue with some of their better-known American counterparts. In France, multiculturalism is generally eschewed in favor of universalism, and there should thus be no identities (in the American sense) to steal. However, as Miller demonstrates, this too is a ruse: French universalism can only go so far and do so much. There is plenty of otherness to appropriate. This French and Francophone tradition of imposture has never received the study it deserves. Taking a novel approach to this understudied tradition, Impostors examines hoaxes in both countries, finding similar practices of deception and questions of harm.  

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9780226591001

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Miller is an accomplished author and scholar, a pioneer of Francophone literature in the American academy, and his work is a touchstone for Francophone Studies more globally. There is no existing book like this one, in its particular comparative approach, in its attention to the complexities of the hoax, and what it entails for our reading praxes. In its genre, Impostors is without a doubt an original work of scholarship. --Lia Brozgal, University of California, Los Angeles

In this fascinating study of intercultural literary hoaxes, Christopher L. Miller provides a useful, brief history of American literary impostures as a backdrop for his investigation of France's literary history of 'ethnic usurpation.' Presenting each case in a lively and engaging manner, Miller also expertly delves into critical issues of cultural authenticity through his nuanced consideration of critical theory. This beautifully written volume is an essential addition to the field. --Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University In this book, Miller takes us on an exciting tour of postcolonial and world literature, guiding us through the literary maze of the real and the pretenders to the real, sorting out fact from fiction in a world where the two are often part of each other. All fiction is hoax, but not all hoax is fiction; it is just that, a hoax. In the process, he helps us think through issues of authenticity and false authenticity, identity and stolen identities. In this era of accusations and counteraccusations of fake news, I can't think of a study more relevant to our times. --Ngugi wa Thiong'o, author of Wizard of the Crow Impostors is another brilliant intervention by Miller on representation and difference. Applying his astonishing erudition and sharp comparative eye to a variety of cases, Miller elaborates a generative theory of 'intercultural hoaxes, ' inviting us to take seriously their consequences as contentious literary events. --Lydie E. Moudileno, Marion Frances Chevalier Professor of French, University of Southern California Miller is an accomplished author and scholar, a pioneer of Francophone literature in the American academy, and his work is a touchstone for Francophone Studies more globally. There is no existing book like this one, in its particular comparative approach, in its attention to the complexities of the hoax, and what it entails for our reading praxes. In its genre, Impostors is without a doubt an original work of scholarship. --Lia Brozgal, University of California, Los Angeles

Author Information

Christopher L. Miller is the Frederick Clifford Ford Professor of African American studies and French at Yale University.

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