Plagiarama! (eBook)

William Wells Brown and the Aesthetic of Attractions

Geoffrey Sanborn (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016
Columbia University Press (Verlag)
978-0-231-54058-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Offers a novel reading of the abolitionist writer's plagiarism, arguing the act was a means of capitalizing on the energies of mass-cultural entertainments popularized by showmen such as P. T. Barnum.

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William Wells Brown (1814-1884) was a vocal abolitionist, a frequent antagonist of Frederick Douglass, and the author of Clotel, the first known novel by an African American. He was also an extensive plagiarist, copying at least 87,000 words from close to 300 texts. In this critical study of Brown's work and legacy, Geoffrey Sanborn offers a novel reading of the writer's plagiarism, arguing the act was a means of capitalizing on the energies of mass-cultural entertainments popularized by showmen such as P. T. Barnum. By creating the textual equivalent of a variety show, Brown animated antislavery discourse and evoked the prospect of a pleasurably integrated world.Brown's key dramatic protagonists were the "e;spirit of capitalization"e;-the unscrupulous double of Max Weber's spirit of capitalism-and the "e;beautiful slave girl,"e; a light-skinned African American woman on the verge of sale and rape. Brown's unsettling portrayal of these figures unfolded within a riotous patchwork of second-hand texts, upset convention, and provoked the imagination. Could a slippery upstart lay the groundwork for a genuinely interracial society? Could the fetishized image of a not-yet-sold woman hold open the possibility of other destinies? Sanborn's analysis of pastiche and plagiarism adds new depth to the study of nineteenth-century culture and the history of African American literature, suggesting modes of African American writing that extend beyond narratives of necessity and purpose, characterized by the works of Frederick Douglass and others.

Autor

Geoffrey Sanborn is professor of English at Amherst College and has taught at Fairfield University, Williams College, and Bard College. His books include Whipscars and Tattoos: The Last of the Mohicans, Moby-Dick, and the Maori; The Sign of the Cannibal: Melville and the Making of a Postcolonial Reader; and, with Samuel Otter, Melville and Aesthetics.

Inhalt

Introduction1. Plagiarama!2. The Spirit of Capitalization3. The Aesthetic of Attractions4. The Beautiful Slave Girl5. The Sound of FameAppendix A: Plagiarism in Brown's WorksAppendix B: Bibliography of Plagiarized WorksNotesIndex

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.3.2016
• Verlagsort: New York
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Essays / Feuilleton
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Pädagogik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• ISBN-10: 0-231-54058-2 / 0231540582
• ISBN-13: 978-0-231-54058-2 / 9780231540582