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Place, Race, and the Topography of American Literature
dc.contributor.advisor | Fowler, Doreen | |
dc.contributor.author | Cunningham, William Weldon | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2019-05-10T16:30:32Z | |
dc.date.available | 2019-05-10T16:30:32Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2017-12-31 | |
dc.date.submitted | 2017 | |
dc.identifier.other | http://dissertations.umi.com/ku:15600 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1808/27843 | |
dc.description.abstract | This dissertation enters a vibrant conversation in literary criticism and cultural geography about the changing nature of place, race, and identity in American literature. Drawing from a wide range of theoretical models, including neo-Marxist geography, critical race theory, and space and place theory, it explores interrelations between the spatial and the social and their co-joined impact on racial identity. Collectively, the novels in this study articulate a complicated relationship between capital systems, material culture, and cultural enunciation. I argue that each novel operates within the nexus of global capitalism, market economies, and spatial models of center and periphery, but that each novel shows a secondary, destabilizing narrative of American experience. In moving away from geographic and literary models that prioritize stasis, the imposition of boundaries, and simplistic agrarian appeals, this project illustrates a vibrant spatial history that is rooted in the experiential and the material. By distinguishing between the ideals of modernity and the process of modernization, I draw out in each chapter the existence of two opposing narratives that wind through the main body of American literature and embroil in a paradoxical constitution of American imperialism and resistance. Relying on close reading of the texts, this project highlights the historical enunciation of these co-joined, spatially manifest narratives, and argues for a new understanding of place and space as components of the American literary canon. | |
dc.format.extent | 236 pages | |
dc.language.iso | en | |
dc.publisher | University of Kansas | |
dc.rights | Copyright held by the author. | |
dc.subject | American literature | |
dc.subject | African American Literature | |
dc.subject | Capitalism | |
dc.subject | Cultural Geography | |
dc.subject | Place | |
dc.subject | Race | |
dc.subject | Southern Literature | |
dc.title | Place, Race, and the Topography of American Literature | |
dc.type | Dissertation | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Graham, Maryemma | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Santangelo, Byron | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Harris, Trudier | |
dc.contributor.cmtemember | Alexander, Shawn | |
dc.thesis.degreeDiscipline | English | |
dc.thesis.degreeLevel | Ph.D. | |
dc.identifier.orcid | ||
dc.rights.accessrights | openAccess |
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Dissertations [4889]
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English Dissertations and Theses [449]