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| what is american identity in literature: American Literature and American Identity Patrick Colm Hogan, 2020-04-07 American Literature and American Identity addresses the crucial issue of identity formation, especially national identity, in influential works of American literature. Patrick Colm Hogan uses techniques of cognitive and affective science to examine the complex and often highly ambivalent treatment of American identity in works by Melville, Cooper, Sedgwick, Apess, Stowe, Jacobs, Douglass, Hawthorne, Poe, and Judith Sargeant Murray. Hogan focuses on the issue of how authors imagined American identity—specifically, as universal, democratic egalitarianism—in the face of the nation’s clear and often brutal inequalities of race and sex. In the course of this study, Hogan advances our understanding of nationalism in general, American identity in particular, and the widely read literary works he examines. |
| what is american identity in literature: Who are We? Samuel P. Huntington, 2005 America was founded by settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of later immigrants came gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the denationalization of American élites. September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism, but already there are signs that this is fading. This book shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans.--From publisher description. |
| what is american identity in literature: American Literature and American Identity Patrick Colm Hogan, 2021-11-10 In recent years, cognitive and affective science have become increasingly important for interpretation and explanation in the social sciences and humanities. However, little of this work has addressed American literature, and virtually none has treated national identity formation in influential works since the Civil War. In this book, Hogan develops his earlier cognitive and affective analyses of national identity, further exploring the ways in which such identity is integrated with cross-culturally recurring patterns in story structure. Hogan examines how authors imagined American identity—understood as universal, democratic egalitarianism—in the face of the nation’s clear and often brutal inequalities of race, sex, and sexuality, exploring the complex and often ambivalent treatment of American identity in works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Eugene O’Neill, Lillian Hellman, Djuna Barnes, Amiri Baraka, Margaret Atwood, N. Scott Momaday, Spike Lee, Leslie Marmon Silko, Tony Kushner, and Heidi Schreck. |
| what is american identity in literature: The Construction of Irish Identity in American Literature Christopher Dowd, 2010-09-13 This book examines the development of literary constructions of Irish-American identity from the mid-nineteenth century arrival of the Famine generation through the Great Depression. It goes beyond an analysis of negative Irish stereotypes and shows how Irish characters became the site of intense cultural debate regarding American identity, with some writers imagining Irishness to be the antithesis of Americanness, but others suggesting Irishness to be a path to Americanization. This study emphasizes the importance of considering how a sense of Irishness was imagined by both Irish-American writers conscious of the process of self-definition as well as non-Irish writers responsive to shifting cultural concerns regarding ethnic others. It analyzes specific iconic Irish-American characters including Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and Margaret Mitchell’s Scarlet O’Hara, as well as lesser-known Irish monsters who lurked in the American imagination such as T.S. Eliot’s Sweeney and Frank Norris’ McTeague. As Dowd argues, in contemporary American society, Irishness has been largely absorbed into a homogenous white culture, and as a result, it has become a largely invisible ethnicity to many modern literary critics. Too often, they simply do not see Irishness or do not think it relevant, and as a result, many Irish-American characters have been de-ethnicized in the critical literature of the past century. This volume reestablishes the importance of Irish ethnicity to many characters that have come to be misread as generically white and shows how Irishness is integral to their stories. |
| what is american identity in literature: Creating an American Identity Stephanie Kermes, 2008-06-15 Creating an American Identity examines the relationship between regionalism and nationalism in New England. Focusing on the years 1789-1825, it analyzes the process by which New Englanders used trans-Atlantic symbols as well as regional landscapes, values, and characteristics to create an American identity. |
| what is american identity in literature: American Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism Jack Citrin, David O. Sears, 2014-08-11 The civil rights movement and immigration reform transformed American politics in the mid-1960s. Demographic diversity and identity politics raised the challenge of e pluribus unum anew, and multiculturalism emerged as a new ideological response to this dilemma. This book uses national public opinion data and public opinion data from Los Angeles to compare ethnic differences in patriotism and ethnic identity and ethnic differences in support for multicultural norms and group-conscious policies. The authors find evidence of strong patriotism among all groups and the classic pattern of assimilation among the new wave of immigrants. They argue that there is a consensus in rejecting harder forms of multiculturalism that insist on group rights but also a widespread acceptance of softer forms that are tolerant of cultural differences and do not challenge norms, such as by insisting on the primacy of English. |
| what is american identity in literature: African American Identity Jas M. Sullivan, Ashraf Esmail, 2012-04-26 Jas M. Sullivan and Ashraf M. Esmail’s African American Identity: Racial and Cultural Dimensions of the Black Experience is a collection which makes use of multiple perspectives across the social sciences to address complex issues of race and identity. The contributors tackle questions about what African American racial identity means, how we may go about quantifying it, what the factors are in shaping identity development, and what effects racial identity has on psychological, political, educational, and health-related behavior. African American Identity aims to continue the conversation, rather than provide a beginning or an end. It is an in-depth study which uses quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods to explore the relationship between racial identity and psychological well-being, effects on parents and children, physical health, and related educational behavior. From these vantage points, Sullivan and Esmail provide a unique opportunity to further our understanding, extend our knowledge, and continue the debate. |
| what is american identity in literature: Johnny Cash and the Paradox of American Identity Leigh H. Edwards, 2009-02-25 Throughout his career, Johnny Cash has been depicted—and has depicted himself—as a walking contradiction: social protestor and establishment patriot, drugged wildman and devout Christian crusader, rebel outlaw hillbilly thug and elder statesman. Leigh H. Edwards explores the allure of this paradoxical image and its cultural significance. She argues that Cash embodies irresolvable contradictions of American identity that reflect foundational issues in the American experience, such as the tensions between freedom and patriotism, individual rights and nationalism, the sacred and the profane. She illustrates how this model of ambivalence is a vital paradigm for American popular music, and for American identity in general. Making use of sources such as Cash's autobiographies, lyrics, music, liner notes, and interviews, Edwards pays equal attention to depictions of Cash by others, such as Vivian Cash's publication of his letters to her, documentaries and music journalism about him, Walk the Line, and fan club materials found in the archives at the Country Music Foundation in Nashville, to create a full portrait of Cash and his significance as a cultural icon. |
| what is american identity in literature: This Violent Empire Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, 2012-12-01 This Violent Empire traces the origins of American violence, racism, and paranoia to the founding moments of the new nation and the initial instability of Americans' national sense of self. Fusing cultural and political analyses to create a new form of political history, Carroll Smith-Rosenberg explores the ways the founding generation, lacking a common history, governmental infrastructures, and shared culture, solidified their national sense of self by imagining a series of Others (African Americans, Native Americans, women, the propertyless) whose differences from European American male founders overshadowed the differences that divided those founders. These Others, dangerous and polluting, had to be excluded from the European American body politic. Feared, but also desired, they refused to be marginalized, incurring increasingly enraged enactments of their political and social exclusion that shaped our long history of racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Close readings of political rhetoric during the Constitutional debates reveal the genesis of this long history. |
| what is american identity in literature: The Semblance of Identity Christopher Lee, 2012-04-18 The history of Asian American literature reveals the ongoing attempt to work through the fraught relationship between identity politics and literary representation. This relationship is especially evident in literary works which claim that their content represents the socio-historical world. The Semblance of Identityargues that the reframing of the field as a critical, rather than identity-based, project nonetheless continues to rely on the logics of identity. Drawing on the writings of philosopher and literary critic Georg Lukacs, Christopher Lee identifies a persistent composite figure that he calls the idealized critical subject, which provides coherence to oppositional knowledge projects and political practices. He reframes identity as an aesthetic figure that tries to articulate the subjective conditions for knowledge. Harnessing Theodor Adorno's notion of aesthetic semblance, Lee offers an alternative account of identity as a figure akin to modern artwork. Like art, Lee argues, identity provides access to imagined worlds that in turn wage a critique of ongoing histories and realities of racialization. This book assembles a transnational archive of literary texts by Eileen Chang, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-rae Lee, Michael Ondaatje, and Jose Garcia Villa, revealing the intersections of subjectivity and representation, and drawing our attention to their limits. |
| what is american identity in literature: Quicksand Nella Larsen, 2022 Harlem Renaissance author Nella Larsen (1891 –1964) published just two novels and three short stories in her lifetime, but achieved lasting literary acclaim. Her classic novel Quicksand first appeared in 1928. |
| what is american identity in literature: A Companion to American Literature Susan Belasco, Theresa Strouth Gaul, Linck Johnson, Michael Soto, 2020-04-02 A comprehensive, chronological overview of American literature in three scholarly and authoritative volumes A Companion to American Literature traces the history and development of American literature from its early origins in Native American oral tradition to 21st century digital literature. This comprehensive three-volume set brings together contributions from a diverse international team of accomplished young scholars and established figures in the field. Contributors explore a broad range of topics in historical, cultural, political, geographic, and technological contexts, engaging the work of both well-known and non-canonical writers of every period. Volume One is an inclusive and geographically expansive examination of early American literature, applying a range of cultural and historical approaches and theoretical models to a dramatically expanded canon of texts. Volume Two covers American literature between 1820 and 1914, focusing on the development of print culture and the literary marketplace, the emergence of various literary movements, and the impact of social and historical events on writers and writings of the period. Spanning the 20th and early 21st centuries, Volume Three studies traditional areas of American literature as well as the literature from previously marginalized groups and contemporary writers often overlooked by scholars. This inclusive and comprehensive study of American literature: Examines the influences of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and disability on American literature Discusses the role of technology in book production and circulation, the rise of literacy, and changing reading practices and literary forms Explores a wide range of writings in multiple genres, including novels, short stories, dramas, and a variety of poetic forms, as well as autobiographies, essays, lectures, diaries, journals, letters, sermons, histories, and graphic narratives. Provides a thematic index that groups chapters by contexts and illustrates their links across different traditional chronological boundaries A Companion to American Literature is a valuable resource for students coming to the subject for the first time or preparing for field examinations, instructors in American literature courses, and scholars with more specialized interests in specific authors, genres, movements, or periods. |
| what is american identity in literature: The American Counterfeit Mary McAleer Balkun, 2006-01-04 Fakery, authenticity, and identity in American literature and culture at the turn of the 20th century Focusing on texts written between 1880 and 1930, Mary McAleer Balkun explores the concept of the “counterfeit,” both in terms of material goods and invented identities, and the ways that the acquisition of objects came to define individuals in American culture and literature. Counterfeiting is, in one sense, about the creation of something that appears authentic—an invented self, a museum display, a forged work of art. But the counterfeit can also be a means by which the authentic is measured, thereby creating our conception of the true or real. When counterfeiting is applied to individual identities, it fosters fluidity in social boundaries and the games of social climbing and passing that have come to be representative of American culture: the Horatio Alger story, the con man or huckster, the social climber, the ethnically ambiguous. Balkun provides new readings of traditional texts such as The Great Gatsby, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The House of Mirth, as well as readings of less-studied texts, such as Walt Whitman’s Specimen Days and Nella Larsen’s Passing. In each of these texts, Balkun locates the presence of manufactured identities and counterfeit figures, demonstrating that where authenticity and consumerism intersect, the self becomes but another commodity to be promoted, sold, and eventually consumed. |
| what is american identity in literature: Writing of America Geoff Ward, 2002-06-10 In this lively and provocative study, Geoff Ward puts forward the bold claim that the founding documents of American identity are essentially literary. America was invented, not discovered, and it remains in thrall to the myth of an earthly Paradise. This is Paradise, and American ideology imprisons as it inspires. The Writing of America shows the tension between these forces in a wide range of literary and other texts, from Puritan sermons and the Declaration of Independence, through nineteenth-century classics, to folk and blues lyrics and the popular novel. Alongside his provocative reassessments of canonical writers, Ward offers new material on lost or neglected figures from the world of literature, film and music. His acute and often startling analyses of American literature and culture make this an essential guide to what Lincoln termed the last best hope of earth. |
| what is american identity in literature: Ellis Island Nation Robert L. Fleegler, 2013-05-28 Though debates over immigration have waxed and waned in the course of American history, the importance of immigrants to the nation's identity is imparted in civics classes, political discourse, and television and film. We are told that the United States is a nation of immigrants, built by people who came from many lands to make an even better nation. But this belief was relatively new in the twentieth century, a period that saw the establishment of immigrant quotas that endured until the Immigrant and Nationality Act of 1965. What changed over the course of the century, according to historian Robert L. Fleegler, is the rise of contributionism, the belief that the newcomers from eastern and southern Europe contributed important cultural and economic benefits to American society. Early twentieth-century immigrants from southern and eastern Europe often found themselves criticized for language and customs at odds with their new culture, but initially found greater acceptance through an emphasis on their similarities to native stock Americans. Drawing on sources as diverse as World War II films, records of Senate subcommittee hearings, and anti-Communist propaganda, Ellis Island Nation describes how contributionism eventually shifted the focus of the immigration debate from assimilation to a Cold War celebration of ethnic diversity and its benefits—helping to ease the passage of 1960s immigration laws that expanded the pool of legal immigrants and setting the stage for the identity politics of the 1970s and 1980s. Ellis Island Nation provides a historical perspective on recent discussions of multiculturalism and the exclusion of groups that have arrived since the liberalization of immigrant laws. |
| what is american identity in literature: Consumption and Identity in Asian American Coming-of-Age Novels Jennifer Ho, 2013-09-13 This interdisciplinary study examines the theme of consumption in Asian American literature, connection representations of cooking and eating with ethnic identity formation. Using four discrete modes of identification--historic pride, consumerism, mourning, and fusion--Jennifer Ho examines how Asian American adolescents challenge and revise their cultural legacies and experiment with alternative ethnic affiliations through their relationships to food. |
| what is american identity in literature: Identity, Diaspora and Return in American Literature Maria Antònia Oliver-Rotger, 2014-09-19 This volume combines literary analysis and theoretical approaches to mobility, diasporic identities and the construction of space to explore the different ways in which the notion of return shapes contemporary ethnic writing such as fiction, ethnography, memoir, and film. Through a wide variety of ethnic experiences ranging from the Transatlantic, Asian American, Latino/a and Caribbean alongside their corresponding forms of displacement - political exile, war trauma, and economic migration - the essays in this collection connect the intimate experience of the returning subject to multiple locations, historical experiences, inter-subjective relations, and cultural interactions. They challenge the idea of the narrative of return as a journey back to the untouched roots and home that the ethnic subject left behind. Their diacritical approach combines, on the one hand, a sensitivity to the context and structural elements of modern diaspora; and on the other, an analysis of the individual psychological processes inherent to the experience of displacement and return such as nostalgia, memory and belonging. In the narratives of return analyzed in this volume, space and identity are never static or easily definable; rather, they are in-process and subject to change as they are always entangled in the historical and inter-subjective relations ensuing from displacement and mobility. This book will interest students and scholars who wish to further explore the role of American literature within current debates on globalization, migration, and ethnicity. |
| what is american identity in literature: Race and Identity in Hemingway's Fiction A. Strong, 2008-04-14 Race and Identity in Hemingway s Fiction explores how Hemingway negotiates race as a defining element of American identity. His interest in race and racial identity emerged in his writing and his personal life, through attention to skin color, performance of racial identity, and experimentation and immersion in tribal life and rituals. This study imagines what Hemingway s fiction would look like if his non-white characters were brought out of the background and asks how Hemingway s conception of American identity transforms when it is constructed on the basis of race. |
| what is american identity in literature: Writing for Inclusion Karen Ruth Kornweibel, 2018-09-15 Writing for Inclusion is a study of some of the ways the idea of national identity developed in the nineteenth century in two neighboring nations, Cuba and The United States. The book examines symbolic, narrative, and sociological commonalities in the writings of four Afro-Cuban and African American writers: Juan Francisco Manzano and Frederick Douglass, fugitive slaves during mid-century; and Martín Morúa Delgado and Charles W. Chesnutt from the post-slavery period. All four share sensitivity to their imperfect inclusion as full citizens, engage in an examination of the process of racialization that hinders them in seeking such inclusion, and contest their definition as non-citizens. Works discussed include the slave narratives of Manzano and Douglass, Manzano’s poetry and play Zafira, andDouglass’s oratory and novella The Heroic Slave. Also considered, within the context provided by Manzano and Douglass, are Morúa and Chesnutt’s non-fiction writings about race and nation as well as their second-generation “tragic mulata” novels Sofía and The House Behind the Cedars. Based on an examination of the works of these four authors, Writing for Inclusion provides a detailed examination of examples of self-emancipation, the authors’ symbolic use of language, their expression of social anxieties or irony within the quest for recognition, and their arguments for an inclusive vision of national identity beyond the quagmires of race. By focusing on the process of racialization and ideas of race and national identity in a comparative context, the study seeks to highlight the artificial and contested nature of both terms and suggest new ways to interrogate them in our present day. |
| what is american identity in literature: Terrorist John Updike, 2007-07-26 In his extraordinary and highly charged new novel, John Updike tackles one of America's most burning issues – the threat of Islamist terror from within. Set in contemporary New Jersey, Terrorist traces the journey of one young man, from radicalism to fundamentalism to terrorism, against the backdrop of a fraying urban landscape and an increasingly fragmented community. In beautiful prose, Updike dramatizes the logic of the fundamentalist terrorist – but also suggests ways in which we can counter it, in our words and our actions . . . |
| what is american identity in literature: Performing American Identity in Anti-Mormon Melodrama Megan Sanborn Jones, 2009-06-10 In the late nineteenth century, melodramas were spectacular entertainment for Americans. They were also a key forum in which elements of American culture were represented, contested, and inverted. This book focuses specifically on the construction of the Mormon villain as rapist, murderer, and Turk in anti-Mormon melodramas. These melodramas illustrated a particularly religious world-view that dominated American life and promoted the sexually conservative ideals of the cult of true womanhood. They also examined the limits of honorable violence, and suggested the whiteness of national ethnicity. In investigating the relationship between theatre, popular literature, political rhetoric, and religious fervor, Megan Sanborn Jones reveals how anti-Mormon melodramas created a space for audiences to imagine a unified American identity. |
| what is american identity in literature: The Blues Aesthetic and the Making of American Identity in the Literature of the South Barbara A. Baker, 2003 Examining the manner in which the aesthetics related to blues music are manifested in the literature of George Washington Harris, Charles Chesnutt, Zora Neale Hurston, and Lewis Nordan reveals that African-American experience is diffused throughout Southern literature, from Old Southwest humor to contemporary fiction. |
| what is american identity in literature: Thinking America Andrew Taylor, 2010 A penetrating literary and philosophical examination of major figures in the development of American intellectual culture, from Emerson to Santayana |
| what is american identity in literature: Seeking the Region in American Literature and Culture Robert Jackson, 2005-10-10 Regionalism often evokes provinciality and an affiliation with minor literary genres, but Robert Jackson shows that region is an integral part of American identity, providing grounding for major independent voices. Jackson offers a new critical model of region that contributes to literary and cultural study across a wide range of topics. He addresses American literature since the Civil War with particular attention to Mark Twain, William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and Toni Morrison. In advancing their own diverse aesthetic and social agendas -- reactionary and progressive, theological and secular, gender-based, race-based, and above all, dissident -- these writers, Jackson argues, articulate some of the most perceptive and innovative expressions of the American region in the literary history of the United States. According to Jackson, the region transcends both rigidly defined spatial categories -- the South of slavery, the North of freedom, the West of unlimited possibility -- and derivative cultural connotations of local color to reveal subtle and powerful insights. He provides a regional reading of Twain's greatest novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and a meaningful new interpretation of the work and its place in the American canon. He explores Faulkner's obsession with regional identity and places the Mississippian's work in problematic relation to the Depression-era Nashville Agrarian movement. O'Connor, searching for a critical vocabulary to confront mainstream American literature, religion, and gender, transforms the region from a hothouse of sentimentality into a sharp, deadly weapon in her short fiction. Morrison's brilliant appropriation of region enables her to fashion an aesthetic that is both race-conscious and endowed with revisionist agency; through the region she imagines a new grounding for American identity. Jackson illuminates the importance of rethinking long-established assumptions and demonstrates the vast potential of the region in critical considerations of American literature and culture. Even as he devotes significant attention to realism, modernism, southern literature, and African American literature, he speaks to a wide range of fields in American Cultural studies. |
| what is american identity in literature: Constructing the Black Masculine Maurice O. Wallace, 2002-06-12 In seven representative episodes of black masculine literary and cultural history—from the founding of the first African American Masonic lodge in 1775 to the 1990s choreographies of modern dance genius Bill T. Jones—Constructing the Black Masculine maps black men’s historical efforts to negotiate the frequently discordant relationship between blackness and maleness in the cultural logic of American identity. Maurice O. Wallace draws on an impressive variety of material to investigate the survivalist strategies employed by black men who have had to endure the disjunction between race and masculinity in American culture. Highlighting their chronic objectification under the gaze of white eyes, Wallace argues that black men suffer a social and representational crisis in being at once seen and unseen, fetish and phantasm, spectacle and shadow in the American racial imagination. Invisible and disregarded on one hand, black men, perceived as potential threats to society, simultaneously face the reality of hypervisibility and perpetual surveillance. Paying significant attention to the sociotechnologies of vision and image production over two centuries, Wallace shows how African American men—as soldiers, Freemasons, and romantic heroes—have sought both to realize the ideal image of the American masculine subject and to deconstruct it in expressive mediums like modern dance, photography, and theatre. Throughout, he draws on the experiences and theories of such notable figures as Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, and James Baldwin. |
| what is american identity in literature: Latin American Identity and Constructions of Difference Amaryll Beatrice Chanady, 1994 Required reading for those interested in Latin American identity. Authors recognize difficulty of the pregnancy of the moment - globalization and diaspora - in which the topic is being discussed. In the introduction, Chanady offers an excellent historical review of the topic. Essays by Enrique Dussel, Josâe Rabasa (see item #bi 98003988#), Franðcois Perus, and Iris Zavala are especially noteworthy--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58. |
| what is american identity in literature: Passing and the Fictions of Identity Elaine K. Ginsberg, 1996-04-29 Passing refers to the process whereby a person of one race, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation adopts the guise of another. Historically, this has often involved black slaves passing as white in order to gain their freedom. More generally, it has served as a way for women and people of color to access male or white privilege. In their examination of this practice of crossing boundaries, the contributors to this volume offer a unique perspective for studying the construction and meaning of personal and cultural identities. These essays consider a wide range of texts and moments from colonial times to the present that raise significant questions about the political motivations inherent in the origins and maintenance of identity categories and boundaries. Through discussions of such literary works as Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, The Autobiography of an Ex–Coloured Man, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Hidden Hand, Black Like Me, and Giovanni’s Room, the authors examine issues of power and privilege and ways in which passing might challenge the often rigid structures of identity politics. Their interrogation of the semiotics of behavior, dress, language, and the body itself contributes significantly to an understanding of national, racial, gender, and sexual identity in American literature and culture. Contextualizing and building on the theoretical work of such scholars as Judith Butler, Diana Fuss, Marjorie Garber, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., Passing and the Fictions of Identity will be of value to students and scholars working in the areas of race, gender, and identity theory, as well as U.S. history and literature. Contributors. Martha Cutter, Katharine Nicholson Ings, Samira Kawash, Adrian Piper, Valerie Rohy, Marion Rust, Julia Stern, Gayle Wald, Ellen M. Weinauer, Elizabeth Young |
| what is american identity in literature: American Tensions William Reichard, 2011-04-26 This anthology of contemporary American poetry, short fiction, and nonfiction, explores issues of identity, oppression, injustice, and social change. Living American writers produced each piece between 1980 and the present; works were selected based on literary merit and the manner in which they address one or more pressing social issues. William Reichard has assembled some of the most respected literary artists of our time, asking whose voices are ascendant, whose silenced, and why. The work as a whole reveals shifting perspectives and the changing role of writing in the social justice arena over the last few decades. |
| what is american identity in literature: The Latin American Identity and the African Diaspora Antonio Olliz Boyd, 2010 Antonio Olliz Boyd is an emeritus professor of Latin American literature at Temple University. He holds a PhD from Stanford University, an MS from Grorgetown University, and a BA from Long Island University. Dr. Olliz Boyd has published various essays on Afro Latino aesthetics in literature in volumes, such as the Dictionary of Literary Biography: Modern Latin-American Fiction Writers; Singular Like a Bird: The Art of Nancy Morejon; Imagination, Emblems and Expressions: Essays on Latin American, Caribbean, and Continental Culture and Identity; Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays among others, as well as articles on Afro Latino literary criticism in various refereed journals. --Book Jacket. |
| what is american identity in literature: Indians, Environment, and Identity on the Borders of American Literature L. Smith, 2008-08-04 The authors discussed in this book, including James Fenimore Cooper, William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, and Leslie Marmon Silko, place this cross-cultural contact in nature, not only collapsing cultural and racial boundaries, but also complicating divisions between 'wilderness' and 'civilization.' |
| what is american identity in literature: Race, Immigration, and American Identity in the Fiction of Salman Rushdie, Ralph Ellison, and William Faulkner Randy Boyagoda, 2010-04-02 Read together, novels from a contemporary world writer (Salman Rushdie) and two modern American authors (Faulkner and Ellision) depict a century-long transformation of how American identity and experience have been conceived and imagined; these changes are revealed in the fiction of encounters between immigrants and natives. |
| what is american identity in literature: American Literature and American Identity Patrick Colm Hogan, 2021-11-10 In recent years, cognitive and affective science have become increasingly important for interpretation and explanation in the social sciences and humanities. However, little of this work has addressed American literature, and virtually none has treated national identity formation in influential works since the Civil War. In this book, Hogan develops his earlier cognitive and affective analyses of national identity, further exploring the ways in which such identity is integrated with cross-culturally recurring patterns in story structure. Hogan examines how authors imagined American identity—understood as universal, democratic egalitarianism—in the face of the nation’s clear and often brutal inequalities of race, sex, and sexuality, exploring the complex and often ambivalent treatment of American identity in works by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Eugene O’Neill, Lillian Hellman, Djuna Barnes, Amiri Baraka, Margaret Atwood, N. Scott Momaday, Spike Lee, Leslie Marmon Silko, Tony Kushner, and Heidi Schreck. |
| what is american identity in literature: Are We what We Eat? William R. Dalessio, 2012 Over the last forty years, scenes that prominently feature acts of preparing and eating food have filled the pages of novels and memoirs written by American immigrants and their descendants because these writers understand that eating is more than a purely biological function but, instead, works to define who we are in the United States and abroad. Are We What We Eat? critically analyzes eight of these pieces of ethnic American literature, which demonstrate the important role that cooking and eating play in the process of identity formation. With the growing scholarly and popular interests in food and ethnicity in the United States, Are We What We Eat? is a timely analysis of food in literature and culture. To date, much of the scholarship on cooking and eating in ethnic American literature has focused on a specific ethnic group, but has not examined, in any in depth way, the similarities among the different ethnic and racial groups that comprise American culture. Are We What We Eat? presents a cross-cultural analysis that considers the common experiences among several ethnic cultures and, at the same time, recognizes the different ways that each culture was (and in some cases, still is) marginalized by the dominant American one. With analysis that is articulate and accessible to most, Are We What We Eat? will be an illuminating study for all who are interested in food, ethnicity, or gender in American culture. |
| what is american identity in literature: Identity in Latin American and Latina Literature Kathryn Quinn-Sánchez, 2014-12-18 This study demonstrates the ways that Latina authors contest how power and space exploit women while simultaneously subverting the Nation-State through reimagining a counter-space where new definitions of the self lie beyond Power’s reach. Moreover, this book delves into how both Power and Space collude to uphold the out-of-date sexist, racist, and classist societal norms that Eurocentrism and history continue to cleave to as the defining qualities of the nation and its citizens. With the proliferation of Latin literature within the United States, an ideological readjustment is taking place whereby several late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century authors contest the State’s role in defining its citizens by exposing the unjust role that Space and Power play. With this in mind,the author examines several literary versions of identity to explore how certain authors reject and subvert the social mores against which present-day citizens are measured—especially within government or State institutions but also within families and neighborhoods. The literary works that are analyzed cover a period of twenty-five years ending in 2010. Several of these texts rewrite the national allegory from the point of view of the marginalized while others demonstrate how an individual successfully renegotiates her identity—gender, social class, or ethnicity—from being a disadvantage to being an identity marker to celebrate. The authors defy the place that women are still relegated to, by representing several characters who consciously decide that it is time to battle the forces that would keep them powerless in the public arena. Above all, these texts are anti-Power; the protagonists refuse to accept the societal forces which constantly barrage them, defining them as worthless. These authors and their characters challenge everything that historically has kept women relegated to a space of weakness. |
| what is american identity in literature: Shades of Black William Cross, 1991-12-18 In this controversial and path-breaking book, William E. Cross, Jr., presents the diversity and texture that have always been the hallmark of Black psychology. Shades of Black explodes the myth that self-hatred is the dominant theme in Black identity. With a thorough review of social scientific literature on Negro identity conducted between 1936 and 1967, Cross demonstrates that important themes of mental health and adaptive strength have been frequently overlooked by scholars, both Black and White, obsessed with proving Black pathology. He examines the Black Power Movement and critics who credit this era with a comprehensive change in Black self-esteem. Allowing for a considerable gain in group identity among Black people during this period, Cross shows how, before this, working and middle class, and even many poor Black families were able to offer their progeny a legacy of mental health and personal strength that sustained them in their struggles for political and cultural consensus. Author note: William E. Cross, Jr., is a psychologist and Associate Professor in the Africana Studies and Research Center of Cornell University. |
| what is american identity in literature: An American Icon Winifred Morgan, 1988 The top hat and stars and stripes that characterize Uncle Sam today were first worn by Yankee actors portraying Brother Jonathan. This book explores the complex emblematic function of the Brother Jonathan figure and its changing meaning through the decades and in a multitude of popular media. |
| what is american identity in literature: Debating American Identity Linda C. Noel, 2014-02-27 Debating American Identity is an innovative look at four national debates over the inclusion of the Mexican-origin population in the United States in the early twentieth century. Linda C. Noel explores different conceptions of American identity through disputes over Arizona and New Mexico statehood, temporary workers, immigration, and repatriation. |
| what is american identity in literature: Fashion and Fiction Lauren S. Cardon, 2016 During the twentieth century, the rise of the concept of Americanization--shedding ethnic origins and signs of otherness to embrace a constructed American identity--was accompanied by a rhetoric of personal transformation that would ultimately characterize the American Dream. The theme of self-transformation has remained a central cultural narrative in American literary, political, and sociological texts ranging from Jamestown narratives to immigrant memoirs, from slave narratives to Gone with the Wind, and from the rags-to-riches stories of Horatio Alger to the writings of Barack Obama. Such rhetoric feeds American myths of progress, upward mobility, and personal reinvention. In Fashion and Fiction, Lauren S. Cardon draws a correlation between the American fashion industry and early twentieth-century literature. As American fashion diverged from a class-conscious industry governed by Parisian designers to become more commercial and democratic, she argues, fashion designers and journalists began appropriating the same themes of self-transformation to market new fashion trends. Cardon illustrates how canonical twentieth-century American writers, including Edith Wharton, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Nella Larsen, symbolically used clothing to develop their characters and their narrative of upward mobility. As the industry evolved, Cardon shows, the characters in these texts increasingly enjoyed opportunities for individual expression and identity construction, allowing for temporary performances that offered not escapism but a testing of alternate identities in a quest for self-discovery. |
| what is american identity in literature: Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes Juan JosŽ Alonzo, 2009-09-15 Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes is a comparative study of the literary and cinematic representation of Mexican American masculine identity from early twentieth-century adventure stories and movie Westerns through contemporary self-representations by Chicano/a writers and filmmakers. In this deeply compelling book, Juan J. Alonzo proposes a reconsideration of the early stereotypical depictions of Mexicans in fiction and film: rather than viewing stereotypes as unrelentingly negative, Alonzo presents them as part of a complex apparatus of identification and disavowal. Furthermore, Alonzo reassesses Chicano/a self-representation in literature and film, and argues that the Chicano/a expression of identity is characterized less by essentialism than by an acknowldgement of the contingent status of present-day identity formations. Alonzo opens his provocative study with a fresh look at the adventure stories of Stephen Crane and the silent Western movies of D. W. Griffith. He also investigates the conflation of the greaser, the bandit, and the Mexican revolutionary into one villainous figure in early Western movies and, more broadly, traces the development of the badman in Westerns. He newly interrogates the writings of AmŽrico Paredes regarding the makeup of Mexican masculinity, and productively trains his analytic eye on the recent films of Jim Mendiola and the contemporary poetry of Evangelina Vigil. Throughout Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes, Alonzo convincingly demonstrates how fiction and films that formerly appeared one-dimensional in their treatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans actually offer surprisingly multifarious and ambivalent representations. At the same time, his valuation of indeterminacy, contingency, and hybridity in contemporary cultural production creates new possibilities for understanding identity formation. |
| what is american identity in literature: The American Adam R. W. B. Lewis, 1955 The first really original book on the classical period in American writing that has appeared for a long time. |
The American dream and literature: how the themes of self …
American literature, the goal of this paper is to explore and examine how selected works in the American literary canon contribute to defining, constructing, and sustaining the basic principles …
Constructing American Identity/Identities - JSTOR
American identity. All three books are fascinating and illuminate important, if often overlooked, episodes and practices that have helped construct our understanding of what it means to be an …
How Are American Literature And The American Identity …
Identity addresses the crucial issue of identity formation especially national identity in influential works of American literature Patrick Colm Hogan uses techniques of cognitive and affective …
Constituting a sense of “American” identity and place through …
ABSTRACT: This article examines constructions of “American” identity and place in the first influential guides for English teaching published in the United States at the cusp of the 20th …
The Winthrop Variation: A Model of American Identity - British …
The model American here stands for a transparently made-up concept of nationality; for a set of beliefs that has often been challenged and revised; for a vision of community. Proceedings of …
LITERATURE? AN OVERVIEW - Learner
How does literature create conceptions of the American experience and American identity? This two-part question should trigger discussion about issues such as, Who belongs to America? …
ON THE NECESSITY OF FOSTERING AMERICAN I - America in Class
But Webster was a fiery-penned Patriot who wrote and lectured widely in the 1780s, urging Americans to create their own identity, character, and ”manners,” and to revise British English …
22 The Literary Construction of Identity: A Comparative Study of
This chapter offers a comparative study of contemporary Chinese American and British Chinese literature to uncover how the processes of identity construction in narrative fiction are shaped …
The West and American Cultural Identity: Old Themes and New
A concern with the West as an image of American culture and the analysis of our frontier experience as a means of defining America's cul-tural identity are prominent in traditional …
Exploring The Multifaceted Themes Of Identity And Belonging In
Through a comprehensive analysis of select literary works, this publication aims to examine how contemporary English authors navigate the intricacies of identity formation and the significance …
“Too isolated, too insular”: American Literature and the World
We offer four principal findings: American literature consistently features greater domestic attention than does British literature; American literature is, nevertheless, significantly …
THE POETICS OF NATIONAL AND RACIAL IDENTITY IN …
John D. Kerkering’s study examines the literary history of racial and national identity in nineteenth-century America. Kerkering argues that writers such as Du Bois, Lanier, Simms, and Scott …
English 208: Introduction to American Literature: The 20th Century
European in origin, but they cast a wide net of influence, and for several decades American literature negotiated a new identity as simultaneously national and international work, …
American Literature and American Identity; A Cognitive Cultural …
American Literature and American Identity addresses the crucial issue of identity for mation, especially national identity, in influential works of American literature. Patrick Colm Hogan uses …
The Creation of American National Identity: 1774-1796 - JSTOR
1 The nature of American national identity, or "national character" as it is often referred to in the literature, has been the subject of numerous investigations over the course of the past fifty years.
Identifying Identity: A Semantic History
But adding a modifier complicates matters, for how are we to understand identity in such expressions as "ethnic identity," "Jewish identity," or "American. identity"? This is a question to …
From Identity Crisis to Identity Construction: A Study of Identity ...
Most of Toni Morrison’s works focus on the loss and reconstruction of African-American identity, revealing the conflicts between black faith and white values. Beloved is one of Toni Morrison’s …
MAKING SENSE OF 'RACE' AND ETHNICITY IN LITERATURE - JSTOR
The first three chapters examine how "American ethnic writers represent and respond to cultural histories of trauma and loss" (24). In chapter one, Franco shows how Philip Roth's The Ghost …
Race and Gender in the Shaping of the American Literary Canon
American Literature: 1607-1900, consciously excludes black writers as "northern" and outside the book's chronology, although it includes other distinctly northern and twentieth-century writers. …
Exploring Identity in Literature and Life Stories
Exploring Identity in Literature and Life Stories: The Elusive Self grew out of a project focusing on how issues of identity are presented in different types of narratives, based at Østfold University College, Halden, Norway. It was initiated towards the end of 2015 by the Literature and Narrativity
The American dream and literature: how the themes of self …
American literature, the goal of this paper is to explore and examine how selected works in the American literary canon contribute to defining, constructing, and sustaining the basic principles of the American dream, in which each individual has the unlimited opportunities to achieve
Constructing American Identity/Identities - JSTOR
American identity. All three books are fascinating and illuminate important, if often overlooked, episodes and practices that have helped construct our understanding of what it means to be an American. In the introduction to Constructing American Lives , Scott Casper describes his project as a "cultural history of a genre" (3, 15).
How Are American Literature And The American Identity …
Identity addresses the crucial issue of identity formation especially national identity in influential works of American literature Patrick Colm Hogan uses techniques of cognitive and affective science to examine the complex and often highly ambivalent treatment of American identity in works by Melville Cooper Sedgwick Apess Stowe Jacobs ...
Constituting a sense of “American” identity and place through …
ABSTRACT: This article examines constructions of “American” identity and place in the first influential guides for English teaching published in the United States at the cusp of the 20th Century.
The Winthrop Variation: A Model of American Identity - British …
The model American here stands for a transparently made-up concept of nationality; for a set of beliefs that has often been challenged and revised; for a vision of community. Proceedings of the British Academy, 97, 75–94. Read at the Academy 23 October 1997. The British Academy 1998.
LITERATURE? AN OVERVIEW - Learner
How does literature create conceptions of the American experience and American identity? This two-part question should trigger discussion about issues such as, Who belongs to America? When and how does one become an American? How has the search for identity among American writers changed over time?
ON THE NECESSITY OF FOSTERING AMERICAN I - America in Class
But Webster was a fiery-penned Patriot who wrote and lectured widely in the 1780s, urging Americans to create their own identity, character, and ”manners,” and to revise British English into their own American language.
22 The Literary Construction of Identity: A Comparative Study …
This chapter offers a comparative study of contemporary Chinese American and British Chinese literature to uncover how the processes of identity construction in narrative fiction are shaped by their different national and political contexts.
The West and American Cultural Identity: Old Themes and New …
A concern with the West as an image of American culture and the analysis of our frontier experience as a means of defining America's cul-tural identity are prominent in traditional historiography. Turner's 1893 thesis was an essay in cultural self-consciousness, for his basic question was: What has the westward movement contributed to the ...
Exploring The Multifaceted Themes Of Identity And Belonging In …
Through a comprehensive analysis of select literary works, this publication aims to examine how contemporary English authors navigate the intricacies of identity formation and the significance of belonging in the modern world.
“Too isolated, too insular”: American Literature and the World
We offer four principal findings: American literature consistently features greater domestic attention than does British literature; American literature is, nevertheless, significantly concerned with global locations; politics and other international conflicts are
THE POETICS OF NATIONAL AND RACIAL IDENTITY IN …
John D. Kerkering’s study examines the literary history of racial and national identity in nineteenth-century America. Kerkering argues that writers such as Du Bois, Lanier, Simms, and Scott used poetic effects to assert the distinctiveness of certain groups in a diffuse social landscape.
English 208: Introduction to American Literature: The 20th Century
European in origin, but they cast a wide net of influence, and for several decades American literature negotiated a new identity as simultaneously national and international work, participating in world cultural and artistic dialogues while still concerned to remain authentically national.
American Literature and American Identity; A Cognitive Cultural …
American Literature and American Identity addresses the crucial issue of identity for mation, especially national identity, in influential works of American literature. Patrick Colm Hogan uses techniques of cognitive and aective science to examine.
The Creation of American National Identity: 1774-1796 - JSTOR
1 The nature of American national identity, or "national character" as it is often referred to in the literature, has been the subject of numerous investigations over the course of the past fifty years.
Identifying Identity: A Semantic History
But adding a modifier complicates matters, for how are we to understand identity in such expressions as "ethnic identity," "Jewish identity," or "American. identity"? This is a question to which the existing writings on ethnicity do not provide a satisfactory answer.
From Identity Crisis to Identity Construction: A Study of Identity ...
Most of Toni Morrison’s works focus on the loss and reconstruction of African-American identity, revealing the conflicts between black faith and white values. Beloved is one of Toni Morrison’s masterpieces, which won the Pulitzer Prize for the Best Novel, a milestone in the history of American literature. Beloved is based on a true story.
MAKING SENSE OF 'RACE' AND ETHNICITY IN LITERATURE - JSTOR
The first three chapters examine how "American ethnic writers represent and respond to cultural histories of trauma and loss" (24). In chapter one, Franco shows how Philip Roth's The Ghost Writer and Cynthia Ozick's The Messiah of Stockholm grapple with the role that the Holocaust plays in Jewish American identity formation.
Race and Gender in the Shaping of the American Literary Canon
American Literature: 1607-1900, consciously excludes black writers as "northern" and outside the book's chronology, although it includes other distinctly northern and twentieth-century writers. The index conveys the operative view of African-American writing: …
