The Global Remapping of American Literature (ebook)

Argumento de The Global Remapping of American Literature (ebook)

"The Global Remapping of American Literature is, as has come to be expected of the work of Paul Giles, an excellent addition to the field of American studies. . . . Giles writes with the inevitable authority of a scholar whose critical achievements are consolidated by this latest work."--Theresa Saxon, Years Work in English Studies

"This timely and inclusive book reconfigures the coordinates of the entire field of American literature for the transnational epoch. Scrupulously researched, it inaugurates a wholly alternative mode of understanding and is bound to provoke argument and discussion. Giles's engaging prose is a pleasure to read."--Donald E. Pease, Dartmouth College

"There is no question that this ambitious book will find a wide readership among those in the fields of American literature and American studies. It brilliantly covers an impressive range of texts and offers new and provocative insights. Rich in detail, its implications for the study of American literature are decisive and far reaching."--Leonard Tennenhouse, Duke University

"In this richly provocative study, Giles posits a protean map of the American imagination."--Choice

"The Global Remapping of American Literature was the first work from Paul Giles that I had the opportunity to read--it alone broadened my perspective on the work of the critic within the ever-shifting world of American literary studies."--Guy Risko, Symploke

"Paul Giles can arguably be considered one of the most significant non-host nation scholars of American writing and culture active today and, consequently is among the first rank of academic literary critics in the current moment. His recent The Global Remapping of American Literature simply stands as one of the high water marks for literary criticism in 2011 so far, and, despite Giles' continuing productivity, ought to be recognized as a career-marking bravura work of skilled reorganization of the field of American Studies itself."--Stephen Shapiro, Review of English Studies

Honorable Mention for the 2012 BAAS Book Prize, British Association of American Studies
Shortlisted for the 2012 American Studies Network Prize0List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Deterritorialization of American Literature 1

Part One: Temporal Latitudes
Chapter 1: Augustan American Literature: An Aesthetics of Extravagance 29
Restoration Legacies: Cook and Byrd 29
The Plantation Epic: Magnalia Christi Americana 42
New World Topographies: Wheatley, Dwight, Alsop 55
Chapter 2: Medieval American Literature: Antebellum Narrativesand the "Map of the Infinite" 70
Emerson, Longfellow, and the Longue Durée 70
"Medieval" Mound Builders and the Archaeological Imagination 86
Hawthorne, Melville, and the Question of Genealogy 97

Part Two: The Boundaries of the Nation
Chapter 3: The Arcs of Modernism: Geography as Allegory 111
Postbellum Cartographies: William Dean Howells 111
Ethnic Palimpsests, National Standards 120
"Description without Place": Stevens, Stein, and Modernist Geographies 125
Chapter 4: Suburb, Network, Homeland: National Spaceand the Rhetoric of Broadcasting 141
"Voice of America": Roth, Morrison, DeLillo 141
Lost in Space: John Updike 154
The MTV Generation: Wallace and Eggers 161

Part Three: Spatial Longitudes
Chapter 5: Hemispheric Parallax: South Americaand the American South 183
Rotating Perspectives: Bartram, Simms, Martí 183
Regionalism and Pseudo-geography: Hurston and Bishop 199
Mississippi Vulgate: Faulkner and Barthelme 212
Chapter 6: Metaregionalism: The Global Pacific Northwest 223
Reversible Coordinates: The Epistemology of Space 223
Orient and Orientation: Snyder, Le Guin, Brautigan 232
Virtual Canadas: Gibson and Coupland 242
Conclusion: American Literature and theQuestion of Circumference 255

Works Cited 269
Index 305