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Author:

Hebard, Andrew.

Title:

The poetics of sovereignty in American literature, 1885-1910 / Andrew Hebard.

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press,

Copyright Date:

2013

Description:

x, 204 p. ; 24 cm.

Subject:

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.
American literature--20th century--History and criticism.
Sovereignty in literature.
Literature and society--United States--History--19th century.
Literature and society--United States--History--20th century.
Law and literature--United States--History--19th century.
Law and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-198) and index.

Contents:

Introduction: 'an empire of letters' -- 'Like a disembodied shade': popular romances and the American imperial state -- Styling territory: Mark Twain and the 'stupendous joke' of imperial sovereignty -- 'Twisted from the ordinary': naturalism, sovereignty, and the conventions of Chinese exclusion -- Acts of lawless discretion: Westerns and the Plenary Administration of Native Americans -- Romance and riot: Charles Chesnutt and the conventions of extralegal violence in the Jim Crow South.

Summary:

"During the Progressive Era, the United States regularly suspended its own laws to regulate racialized populations. Judges and administrators relied on the rhetoric of sovereignty to justify such legal practices, while in American popular culture, sovereignty helped authors coin tropes that have become synonymous with American exceptionalism today. In this book, Andrew Hebard challenges the notion of sovereignty as a 'state of exception' in American jurisprudence and literature at the turn of the twentieth century. Hebard explores how literary trends such as romance and realism helped conventionalize, and thereby sanction, the federal government's use of sovereignty in a range of foreign and domestic policy matters, including the regulation of overseas colonies, immigration, Native American lands, and extra-legal violence in the American South. Weaving historiography with close readings of Mark Twain, the Western, and other hallmarks of Progressive Era literature, Hebard's study offers a new cultural context for understanding the legal history of race relations in the United States."--Publisher's website.

Series:

Cambridge studies in American literature and culture ; 165

ISBN:

110702806X (hardback : alk. paper)
9781107028067 (hardback : alk. paper)

OCLC:

(OCoLC)798437844

LCCN:

2012023778

Locations:

OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)