UID:
almahu_9949687546002882
Format:
1 online resource (249 p.)
Edition:
1st ed.
ISBN:
0-8147-9541-2
,
0-8147-9478-5
Series Statement:
America and the long 19th century
Content:
In the late nineteenth century, American teachers descended on the Philippines, which had been newly purchased by the U.S. at the end of the Spanish-American War. Motivated by President McKinley’s project of “benevolent assimilation,” they established a school system that centered on English language and American literature to advance the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which was held up as justification for the U.S.’s civilizing mission and offered as a promise of moral uplift and political advancement. Meanwhile, on American soil, the field of American literature was just being developed and fundamentally, though invisibly, defined by this new, extraterritorial expansion. Drawing on a wealth of material, including historical records, governmental documents from the War Department and the Bureau of Insular Affairs, curriculum guides, memoirs of American teachers in the Philippines, and 19th century literature, Meg Wesling not only links empire with education, but also demonstrates that the rearticulation of American literary studies through the imperial occupation in the Philippines served to actually define and strengthen the field. Empire’s Proxy boldly argues that the practical and ideological work of colonial dominance figured into the emergence of the field of American literature, and that the consolidation of a canon of American literature was intertwined with the administrative and intellectual tasks of colonial management.
Note:
Description based upon print version of record.
,
Introduction: educated subjects: literary production, colonial expansion, and the pedagogical public sphere -- The alchemy of English: colonial state-building and the imperial origins of American literary study -- Empire's proxy: literary study as benevolent discipline -- Agents of assimilation: female authority, male domesticity, and the familial dramas of colonial tutelage -- The performance of patriotism: ironic affiliations and literary disruptions in Carlos Bulosan's America -- Conclusion: "An empire of letters": literary tradition, national sovereignty, and neocolonialism.
,
English
Additional Edition:
ISBN 0-8147-9477-7
Additional Edition:
ISBN 0-8147-9476-9
Language:
English
Keywords:
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
DOI:
10.18574/9780814795415
URL:
NYU Press Open Square
URL:
http://nyu.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.18574/nyu/9780814794760.001.0001/upso-9780814794760
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