Naslov
The Narrative of Captivity and Harriet Jacobs' Slave Narrative: Transition from 'the Population' to (National) Subjecthood

Autori
Šesnić, Jelena

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
EAAS (European Association for American Studies) Florence Workshop: Negotiating Identity: Womanhood, Race, and Slavery in the Nineteenth Century.

Mjesto i datum
Firenca, Italija, 18.10.2012. - 19.10.2012

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
mobility; captivity; captivity narrative; slave narrative; the population; Harriet Jacobs

Sažetak
Stephen Knadler correctly states in his recent article that „literature functions to mediate narratives of national identity and thereby to interpellate national subjects“. Furthermore, Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse have recently suggested a novel course for the development and cross-influence in the history of Anglo-American print culture where a significant place is accorded to various textual accounts of captivity, be it in the form of captivity narratives, Barbary captivity narratives or, as is my focus in this essay, slave narratives. They argue that these „fringe“ narratives, focusing more often than not on unrepresentative characters, who lack recognition, social or national status, and whose identity is further jeopardized by the act of displacement entailed in captivity may be a key documents of an emerging modern culture in the Anglo-American context. It is also significant to note that these captives are disproportionately women, so that Armstrong and Tennenhouse invite us to consider an alternative genealogy of Anglo-American writing that finds its many constitutive facets ensconced in various accounts of captivity refracted in particular through gender and, in the next instance, through race. My presentation attempts to uncover in Harriet Jacob's narrative some formal, narrative, ideological and, ultimately, anthropological rationales underpinning the long duration of the form and its contribution to the development of an American literary culture.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

POVEZANOST RADA