The Plantation in the Postslavery Imagination

by Russ, Elizabeth Christine

• ISBN13: 9780195377156
• ISBN10: 019537715X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-11-05
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Plantation in the Postslavery Imagination examines the persistent presence of the plantation in trans-American literatures of the last century. Russ conceives the plantation to be not primarily a physical location, but rather an ideological and psychological trope through which intersecting histories of the New World are told and retold. The permutations of this imagined site (as something related to but separate from the real plantation) illuminate a number of fundamental issues of concern in Latin American and transnational American studies. The book's comparative analyses engage in debates over gender, race, and nation by emphasizing a series of differences: between modern and postmodern imaginaries, the United States and Spanish America, and continental and island plantation societies.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Christine Russ is Assistant Professor of Spanish Language and Latin American Literature at Southern Methodist University.

Table of Contents

Note on Translation	p. xi
Introduction	p. 3
Modern Plantation Imaginaries	p. 20
Race and Romance in the Americas	p. 36
Women, Nation, and the "Problematic of Space"	p. 65
Postmodern Plantation Imaginaries	p. 95
New World Silences, New World Songs	p. 117
Redressing the Big House	p. 143
Conclusion	p. 171
Notes	p. 175
Works Cited	p. 189
Index	p. 205
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