Constituting Americanness: A History of the Concept and Its Representations in Antebellum American Literature Contributor(s): Schöpp, Joseph C. (Other), Cananau, Iulian (Author) |
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ISBN: 3631657692 ISBN-13: 9783631657690 Publisher: Peter Lang Gmbh, Internationaler Verlag Der W OUR PRICE: $93.06 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: February 2015 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - History | United States - 19th Century - Foreign Language Study | English As A Second Language - Literary Criticism | American - General |
Dewey: 973.4 |
LCCN: 2014040517 |
Series: American Culture |
Physical Information: 0.9" H x 6" W x 8.3" (1.05 lbs) 280 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: This work in cultural history and literary criticism suggests a fresh and fruitful approach to the old notion of Americanness. Following Reinhart Koselleck's Begriffsgeschichte, the author proposes that Americanness is not an ordinary word, but a concept with a historically specific semantic field. In the three decades before the Civil War, Americanness was constituted at the intersection of several concepts, in different stages of their respective histories; among these, nation, representation, individualism, sympathy, race, and womanhood. By tracing the representations of these concepts in literary texts of the antebellum era and investigating their overlapping with the rhetoric of national identification, this study uncovers some of the meaning of Americanness in that period. |