This book examines American literary texts whose portrayal of "American" identity involves the incorporation of a "foreign body" as the precondition for a comprehensive understanding of itself. This nexus of disconcerting textual dynamics arises precisely insofar as both citizen/subject and national identity depend upon a certain alterity, an "other" which constitutes the secondary term of a binary structure. "American" identity thus finds itself ironically con-fused and interwoven with another culture or another nation, double-crossed in the enactment of itself. Individual chapters are devoted to Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, Frederick Douglass, Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mark Twain.

About the Author
John Dolis is professor of English and American studies at Penn State University, Scranton.


Book Information
ISBN 9781611478150
Author John Dolis
Format Hardback
Page Count 212
Imprint Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Publisher Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 230mm * 164mm * 19mm