Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Melville and the Idea of Blackness

Melville and the Idea of Blackness

Freeburg, Christopher

Paperback

Series: Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Book 164

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 1107477832
ISBN13: 9781107477834
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: Jan 29 2015
Pages: 214
Weight: 0.70
Height: 0.49 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
By examining the unique problems that blackness signifies in Moby-Dick, Pierre, Benito Cereno, and The Encantadas, Christopher Freeburg analyzes how Herman Melville grapples with the social realities of racial difference in nineteenth-century America. Where Melville's critics typically read blackness as either a metaphor for the haunting power of slavery or an allegory of moral evil, Freeburg asserts that blackness functions as the site where Melville correlates the sociopolitical challenges of transatlantic slavery and U.S. colonial expansion with philosophical concerns about mastery. By focusing on Melville's iconic interracial encounters, Freeburg reveals the important role blackness plays in Melville's portrayal of characters' arduous attempts to seize their own destiny, amass scientific knowledge, and perfect themselves. A valuable resource for scholars and graduate students in American literature, this text will also appeal to those working in American, African American, and postcolonial studies.

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