Divergent Visions, Contested Spaces: The Early United States Through the Lens of TravelThis multicultural project examines fictional and non-fictional accounts of travel in the Early Republic and antebellum periods. Connecting literary representations of geographic spaces within and outside of U.S. borders to evolving definitions of national American identity, the book explores divergent visions of contested spaces. Through an examination of depictions of the land and travel in fiction and non-fiction, the study uncovers the spatial and legal conceptions of national identity. The study argues that imagined geographies in American literature dramatize a linguistic contest among dominant and marginal voices. Blending interpretations of canonical authors, such as James Fenimore Cooper, Frederick Douglass, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., and Herman Melville, with readings of less well -known writers like Gilbert Imlay, Elizabeth House Trist, Sauk Chief Black Hawk, William Grimes, and Moses Roper, the book interprets diverse authors' impressions of significant spaces migrations. The movements and regions covered include the Anglo-American migration to the Trans-Appalachian Valley after the Revolutionary War; the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and Anglo-American travel west of the Mississippi; the Underground Railroad as depicted in the fugitive slave narrative and novel; and the extension of American interests in maritime endeavors off the California coast and in the South Pacific. |
Contents
Questions of U S History Citizenship and American Identity | 13 |
Chapter Three | 83 |
Chapter Four | 137 |
Copyright | |
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Divergent Visions, Contested Spaces: The Early United States Through Lens of ... Jeffrey Hotz No preview available - 2015 |
Common terms and phrases
African American Ameri American history American society Anglo-American antebellum argues Arlton autobiography Black Hawk Black Hawk War Capt Caroline's chapter civilization Coleridge's complex Constitution Cooper covert geography Creole critique cross-cultural cultural Dana depictions describes Douglass Emigrants escape European expansion experience expresses Fayaway freedom frontier fugitive slave narrative Hawk's Herman Melville Heroic Slave historian ideology Il-ray imagined Imlay Indian interprets journey Kanakas Kubla Khan land landscape language letters literary lived Louisiana Purchase Louisiana Territory Madison Washington Manifest Destiny Mast Melville Mississippi Moses Roper narrator national identity Native American nineteenth century Northup's perspective political Prairie racial readers representation Richard Henry Dana River Roper sailors San Diego Sauk and Fox sense slave novel slavery social South space story territories thirdspace tion Tommo trapper travel narratives treaty Trist Trist's diary Twenty-Four Typee U.S. government Underground Railroad United utopian vision voice Western white Americans writes