Philadelphia Stories: America's Literature of Race and Freedom
- ISBN-10
- 019974193X
- ISBN-13
- 9780199741939
- Category
- Literary Collections
- Pages
- 408
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2013-01-02
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Author
- Samuel Otter
Description
In Philadelphia Stories, Samuel Otter finds literary value, historical significance, and political urgency in a sequence of texts written in and about Philadelphia between the Constitution and the Civil War. Historians such as Gary B. Nash and Julie Winch have chronicled the distinctive social and political space of early national Philadelphia. Yet while individual writers such as Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, and George Lippard have been linked to Philadelphia, no sustained attempt has been made to understand these figures, and many others, as writing in a tradition tied to the city's history. The site of William Penn's "Holy Experiment" in religious toleration and representative government and of national Declaration and Constitution, near the border between slavery and freedom, Philadelphia was home to one of the largest and most influential "free" African American communities in the United States. The city was seen by residents and observers as the laboratory for a social experiment with international consequences. Philadelphia would be the stage on which racial character would be tested and a possible future for the United States after slavery would be played out. It would be the arena in which various residents would or would not demonstrate their capacities to participate in the nation's civic and political life. Otter argues that the Philadelphia "experiment" (the term used in the nineteenth-century) produced a largely unacknowledged literary tradition of peculiar forms and intensities, in which verbal performance and social behavior assumed the weight of race and nation.
Get the book
Other editions
-
- 2021-05-07
- 368 pages
- Paperback
- University of Pennsylvania Press
-
- 2021-05-07
- 392 pages
- Ebook
- University of Pennsylvania Press
-
- 1988
- 319 pages
- Paperback
- Temple University Press
Similar books
-
A Concordance to Conrad's Victory
By Todd K. Bender, James W. Parins, Robert J. Dilliganossession:-amā'the “oise: , ś head'ail but lying under her as deadly, ... seemed to undes stand, exactly how to deal with conceited death 's head.
-
Understanding Ingeborg Bachmann: Understanding Modern European and Latin American Literature
By Karen AchbergerSimilarly , Nadja in " Word for Word " is reluctant to call Mr. Frankel by his first name , Ludwig , an act which would signal an acceptance of his appropriateness for her , since Ludwig — like Robert , Ernst , Fritz , Erich , Franz ...
-
Bluegrass Cavalcade
By Thomas D. ClarkEllen went to Mrs. Donahue's house for help and Pius was soon hurrying to St. Lucy to telephone for a doctor. When Pius returned he brought the Carriers who remained all night. Bill and Pius helped the doctor set the bone and bind in ...
-
Anime Wong: Fictions of Performance
By Karen Tei YamashitaThe mother was on Donahue. 60 Minutes did the doc and they'll repeat the news at ten. People dying, people killing, people crying— you can see it all on TV. Reality is really on TV. It's just another way to see— starvation in North ...
-
Byron: The Erotic Liberal
By Jonathan David GrossPhilip P. Wiener . New York : Charles Scribner's Sons , 1973 . Plato . Plato : The Symposium . Trans . and ed . Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff . Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing Company , 1989 . Plummer , Kenneth , ed .
-
Evening Street Review Number 5
By AMANDA ADAMS, ANDREA BATES, CYNTHIA BELMONTWhen the credits started to roll and Carmen, needing her meds and cigarettes, handed Ryan her car keys, Mary Ellen stared in disbelief. “She's giving him her keys!” she thought, eyeing Pepe, trying to catch his attention because he knew ...
-
The Science of Herself
By Karen Joy FowlerHere she debuts a provocative new story written especially for this series.
-
The Lonely Planet Travel Anthology
By Karen Joy Fowler, Alexander McCall Smith, Francine ProseWe make our way slowly into the assembly hall, where 26 identical pillars cut from one rock line the sides. A fat stupa cut of the same rock stands at the innermost part of the hall; 20 feet high, it's shaped like an overturned bowl ...
-
Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context: A Survey of Parallels Between Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Texts
By John H. Walton... 126 , 134 174 , 203 , 211 , 212 , 216 Theodorides , Aristide , 93 Wiseman , D. J. , 50 , 51 , 67 , Thomas , D. Winton , 170 , 84 , 85 , 89 , 93 , 170 , 200 171 , 200 Thompson , R. Campbell , Wolf , Herbert , 126 22 , 47 , 113 Wright ...
-
Selected Letters: Nicholas Hagger's Letters on His 55 Literary and Universalist Works
By Nicholas HaggerEveryone seems to have got something out of the speeches, the Metaphysical Revolution was declared, and Shelley's wind is now scattering “sparks, my words among mankind” (the passage Kathleen Raine quoted). We now hope it translates ...