| Summary: | As literary studies has departed from a nation-centric model of American literature in favor of a transnational approach that considers texts from North America, Europe, and the Caribbean, ideological, theoretical, and philosophical investigations of national origins have been eschewed in favor of materialist, historicist, and geographical readings of texts. The transnational approach foregrounds the recovery of forgotten writers, and incorporates archival materials as a
means to better account for the range of texts and genres that circulated throughout the eighteenth century Atlantic world. However, the transnational approach is based largely on a historical narrative that distinguishes economic mobility from political power, and explains literary production as a product of seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth century economic development. Reading literary texts that contest this historical narrative, this project reveals a class-conscious
assembly of writers who express deep skepticism of federal power and republicanism. Writing poetry, political pamphlets, regional histories, financial reports, novels, religious tracts, and short stories, these authors narrate founding era history in terms of economic relations, race, gender, and religion, and contest portrayals of a vibrant participatory democracy.
|
|---|
