Overview

Telegraphies explores literatures envisioning the literary, societal, even the perceived metaphysical effects of various cultures' telecommunications technologies, to argue that nineteenth-century Americans tested in the virtual realm new theories of self, place, nation, and god. The book opens by discussing such Native American telecommunications technologies as smoke signals and sign language chains, to challenge common notions that long-distance speech practices emerged only in conjunction with capitalist industrialization. Kay Yandell analyzes the cultural interactions and literary productions that arose as Native telegraphs worked with and against European American telecommunications systems across nineteenth-century America. Into this conversation Telegraphies integrates visions of Morse's electromagnetic telegraph, with its claim to speak new, coded words and to send bodiless, textless prose instantly across the miles. Such writers as Frederick Douglass, Walt Whitman, and Ella Cheever Thayer crafted memoirs, poetic odes, and novels that envision how the birth of instantaneous communication across a vast continent forever alters the way Americans speak, write, build community, and conceive of the divine. While some writers celebrated far-speaking technologies as conduits of a metaphysical Manifest Destiny to overspread America's primitive cultures, others revealed how telecommunication could empower previously silenced voices to range free in the disembodied virtual realm, even as bodies remained confined by race, class, gender, disability, age, or geography. Ultimately, Telegraphies broadens the way literary scholars conceive of telecommunications technologies while providing a rich understanding of similarities between literatures often considered to have little in common.

Full Product Details

9780190901042

Table of Contents

Reviews

Kay Yandells Telegraphies is a masterpiece of story-telling and scholarship. Departing from previous accounts that link telegraphy to a fractured modern consciousness, Yandell traces out telegraph literature's romantic aesthetics to illuminate its role in the creation of new oral traditions and cultural histories for European Americans seeking to create a sense of spiritual connection to this country. The nineteenth century virtual realm enabled by Samuel Morse's telegraph, Yandell suggests, was central to erasing the presence of Americas Native peoples and usurping their storied connections to American land. A must for Americans and indigenous studies scholars alike! * Paula Moya, Stanford University * Kay Yandells new book constitutes a most impressive achievement. A welcome addition to rethinking relations among indigenous and U.S.-focused concepts of identity in the nineteenth century United States, Telegraphies considers traditional writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman alongside concepts like cyborg feminism, the moccasin telegraph, the writings of Leslie Marmon Silko, and orators such as Plenty Coup and Pretty Shield. Meticulous research and phenomenal observations about transformations caused by the dot-dash electrical conduits of the telegraph make this an essential book. * Shirley Samuels, Cornell University * Telegraphies is an impressive and important contribution to the fields of ethnic studies, American cultural studies, and nineteenth-century literary criticism. Kay Yandell presents a complex cultural, theoretical, and literary analysis of the nineteenth-century telegraph as a center of gravity for the discourse and anxiety surrounding agency, nation-building, communication, and belonging in America. What is more, Yandell does this free from dense jargonin short, a well-researched, original perspective that was a pleasure to read. * Ernesto Javier Martinez, University of Oregon *

Kay Yandell's new book constitutes a most impressive achievement. A welcome addition to rethinking relations among indigenous and U.S.-focused concepts of identity in the nineteenth century United States, Telegraphies considers traditional writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, and Walt Whitman alongside concepts like cyborg feminism, the moccasin telegraph, the writings of Leslie Marmon Silko, and orators such as Plenty Coup and Pretty Shield. Meticulous research and phenomenal observations about transformations caused by the 'dot-dash' electrical conduits of the telegraph make this an essential book. * Shirley Samuels, Cornell University * Kay Yandell's Telegraphies is a masterpiece of story-telling and scholarship. Departing from previous accounts that link telegraphy to a fractured modern consciousness, Yandell traces out telegraph literature's romantic aesthetics to illuminate its role in the creation of new oral traditions and cultural histories for European Americans seeking to create a sense of spiritual connection to this country. The nineteenth century virtual realm enabled by Samuel Morse's telegraph, Yandell suggests, was central to erasing the presence of America's Native peoples and usurping their storied connections to American land. A must for Americans and indigenous studies scholars alike! * Paula Moya, Stanford University * Telegraphies is an impressive and important contribution to the fields of ethnic studies, American cultural studies, and nineteenth-century literary criticism. Kay Yandell presents a complex cultural, theoretical, and literary analysis of the nineteenth-century telegraph as a center of gravity for the discourse and anxiety surrounding agency, nation-building, communication, and belonging in America. What is more, Yandell does this free from dense jargon - in short, a well-researched, original perspective that was a pleasure to read. * Ernesto Javier Martinez, University of Oregon *

Author Information

Kay Yandell is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Arkansas. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas with her husband and children.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available