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Sensationalism and the Jew in Antebellum American Literature
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Sensationalism and the Jew in Antebellum American Literature
Series: Oxford Studies in American Literary History
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This book examines the charged but mostly overlooked presence of
the sensational Jew in antebellum literature. This stereotyped
character appears primarily in the pulpy sensation fiction of
popular writers like George Lippard, Ned Buntline, Emerson Bennett,
and others. But this figure also plays an important role in the
sometimes sensational work of canonical writers such as Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman. Whatever the medium,
this character, always overdetermined, does consistent cultural
work. This book contends that, as the figure who embodies money and
capitalism in the antebellum imagination, the sensational Jew is
the character who most fully represents a felt anxiety about the
increasingly unstable nature of a range of social categories in the
antebellum US, and the sense of loss and self-hatred so often
lurking in the background of modern Gentile identity. Each chapter
examines a different form of sensationalism (urban gothic;
sentimental city mysteries; anti-Tom plantation narratives; etc.),
and a different set of anxieties (threats to class status;
collapsing regional identity; the uncertain status of Whiteness and
other racial categories; etc.). Throughout, the sensational Jew
acts both as a figure of proteophobia (fear of disorder and
ambivalence), and as the figure who embodies in uncanny form a more
fulfilling and socially coherent form of identity that predates the
modern liberal selfhood of the post-Enlightenment world. The
sensational Jew is therefore a revealing figure in antebellum
culture, as well as an important antecedent to contemporary
antisemitism in the US.
General
Imprint: |
Oxford UniversityPress
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Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Series: |
Oxford Studies in American Literary History |
Release date: |
July 2023 |
Authors: |
David Anthony
(Professor and Director of the School of Literature, Writing, and Digital Humanities)
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Dimensions: |
240 x 160 x 20mm (L x W x T) |
Pages: |
224 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-19-287173-2 |
Categories: |
Books
Promotions
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LSN: |
0-19-287173-0 |
Barcode: |
9780192871732 |
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