Crisis and Legitimacy in Atlantic American Narratives of Piracy

1678-1865
1. Auflage 2020
ISBN: 978-3-030-43622-3
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 289 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 513 g

Reihe: Maritime Literature and Culture

This Open Access book, Crisis and Legitimacy in Atlantic American Narratives of Piracy: 1678-1865, examines literary and visual representations of piracy beginning with A.O. Exquemelin’s 1678 Buccaneers of America and ending at the onset of the US-American Civil War. Examining both canonical and understudied texts—from Puritan sermons, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Red Rover, and Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” to the popular cross-dressing female pirate novelette Fanny Campbell, and satirical decorated Union envelopes, this book argues that piracy acted as a trope to negotiate ideas of legitimacy in the contexts of U.S. colonialism, nationalism, and expansionism. The readings demonstrate how pirates were invoked in transatlantic literary production at times when dominant conceptions of legitimacy, built upon categorizations of race, class, and gender, had come into crisis. As popular and mobile maritime outlaw figures, it is suggested, piratesasked questions about might and right at critical moments of Atlantic history.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ganser, Alexandra

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Stoffe, Motive und Themen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction: The Pirate as a Figure of Crisis and Legitimacy.- 2. Pirate Narratives and the Colonial Atlantic.- 3. Pirate Narratives and the Revolutionary Atlantic in the Early Republic and the Antebellum Period.- 4. Cultural Constructions of Piracy during the Crisis over Slavery.- 5. Coda.

Über Autor(innen)

Alexandra Ganser is Professor of American Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria, where she also heads the interdisciplinary research platform and PhD program “Mobile Cultures and Societies” and co-directs the Centre for Canadian Studies. Focusing on mobility in North American literature and culture in her work, she has received research awards and grants in Austria, Germany, the UK, and the US.