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The Resource The national uncanny : Indian ghosts and American subjects, Renée L. Bergland

The national uncanny : Indian ghosts and American subjects, Renée L. Bergland

Creator
Summary
Although spectral Indians appear with startling frequency in US literary works, until now the implications of describing them as ghosts have not been thoroughly investigated. In the first years of nationhood, Philip Freneau and Sarah Wentworth Morton peopled their works with Indian phantoms, as did Charles Brocken Brown, Washington Irving, Samuel Woodworth, Lydia Maria Child, James Fenimore Cooper, William Apess, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others who followed. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Native American ghosts figured prominently in speeches attributed to Chief Seattle, Black Elk, and Kicking Bear. Today, Stephen King and Leslie Marmon Silko plot best-selling novels around ghostly Indians and haunted Indian burial grounds. Renée L. Bergland argues that representing Indians as ghosts internalizes them as ghostly figures within the white imagination. Spectralization allows white Americans to construct a concept of American nationhood haunted by Native Americans, in which Indians become sharers in an idealized national imagination. However, the problems of spectralization are clear, since the discourse questions the very nationalism it constructs. Indians who are transformed into ghosts cannot be buried or evaded, and the specter of their forced disappearance haunts the American imagination. Indian ghosts personify national guilt and horror, as well as national pride and pleasure. Bergland tells the story of a terrifying and triumphant American aesthetic that repeatedly transforms horror into glory, national dishonor into national pride
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Extent
199 pages
Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • 1. Indian ghosts and American subjects
  • pt. 1. Possession and dispossession
  • 2. Summoning the invisible world: from the Jeremiad to the Phantasmagoria
  • 3. The haunted American enlightenment
  • 4. "The diseased state of the public mind": Brown, Irving, and Woodworth
  • pt. 2. Erotic politics
  • 5. Contesting the frontier romance: Child and Cooper
  • 6. The phantom lovers of Hobomok
  • 7. Cooper's gaze
  • pt. 3. Race, history, nation
  • 8. William Apess and Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • 9. William Apess's "Tale of blood"
  • 10. Haunted Hawthorne
  • 11. Conclusion
Isbn
9780874519433
Instance
Label
The national uncanny : Indian ghosts and American subjects
Title
The national uncanny
Title remainder
Indian ghosts and American subjects
Statement of responsibility
Renée L. Bergland
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Although spectral Indians appear with startling frequency in US literary works, until now the implications of describing them as ghosts have not been thoroughly investigated. In the first years of nationhood, Philip Freneau and Sarah Wentworth Morton peopled their works with Indian phantoms, as did Charles Brocken Brown, Washington Irving, Samuel Woodworth, Lydia Maria Child, James Fenimore Cooper, William Apess, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and others who followed. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Native American ghosts figured prominently in speeches attributed to Chief Seattle, Black Elk, and Kicking Bear. Today, Stephen King and Leslie Marmon Silko plot best-selling novels around ghostly Indians and haunted Indian burial grounds. Renée L. Bergland argues that representing Indians as ghosts internalizes them as ghostly figures within the white imagination. Spectralization allows white Americans to construct a concept of American nationhood haunted by Native Americans, in which Indians become sharers in an idealized national imagination. However, the problems of spectralization are clear, since the discourse questions the very nationalism it constructs. Indians who are transformed into ghosts cannot be buried or evaded, and the specter of their forced disappearance haunts the American imagination. Indian ghosts personify national guilt and horror, as well as national pride and pleasure. Bergland tells the story of a terrifying and triumphant American aesthetic that repeatedly transforms horror into glory, national dishonor into national pride
Member of
Cataloging source
DLC
http://library.link/vocab/creatorDate
1963-
http://library.link/vocab/creatorName
Bergland, Renée L.
Index
index present
LC call number
PS173.I6
LC item number
B47 2000
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
http://library.link/vocab/subjectName
  • American literature
  • Indians in literature
  • American literature
  • Ghost stories, American
  • Frontier and pioneer life in literature
  • Supernatural in literature
  • Das Unheimliche
  • Geschichte
  • Gespenst
  • Indianer (Motiv)
  • Literatur
  • Amérindien (peuple)
  • Amérindien (peuple)
  • Literatur
  • Gespenstergeschichte
  • American literature
  • Frontier and pioneer life in literature
  • Ghost stories, American
  • Indians in literature
  • Supernatural in literature
  • USA
  • USA
  • Indianer <Motiv>
Label
The national uncanny : Indian ghosts and American subjects, Renée L. Bergland
Instantiates
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [181]-188) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Acknowledgments -- 1. Indian ghosts and American subjects -- pt. 1. Possession and dispossession -- 2. Summoning the invisible world: from the Jeremiad to the Phantasmagoria -- 3. The haunted American enlightenment -- 4. "The diseased state of the public mind": Brown, Irving, and Woodworth -- pt. 2. Erotic politics -- 5. Contesting the frontier romance: Child and Cooper -- 6. The phantom lovers of Hobomok -- 7. Cooper's gaze -- pt. 3. Race, history, nation -- 8. William Apess and Nathaniel Hawthorne -- 9. William Apess's "Tale of blood" -- 10. Haunted Hawthorne -- 11. Conclusion
Dimensions
24 cm.
Extent
199 pages
Isbn
9780874519433
Isbn Type
(alk. paper)
Lccn
99035382
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
System control number
  • (OCoLC)41565191
  • (OCoLC)ocm41565191
Label
The national uncanny : Indian ghosts and American subjects, Renée L. Bergland
Publication
Bibliography note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [181]-188) and index
Carrier category
volume
Carrier category code
  • nc
Carrier MARC source
rdacarrier
Content category
text
Content type code
  • txt
Content type MARC source
rdacontent
Contents
Acknowledgments -- 1. Indian ghosts and American subjects -- pt. 1. Possession and dispossession -- 2. Summoning the invisible world: from the Jeremiad to the Phantasmagoria -- 3. The haunted American enlightenment -- 4. "The diseased state of the public mind": Brown, Irving, and Woodworth -- pt. 2. Erotic politics -- 5. Contesting the frontier romance: Child and Cooper -- 6. The phantom lovers of Hobomok -- 7. Cooper's gaze -- pt. 3. Race, history, nation -- 8. William Apess and Nathaniel Hawthorne -- 9. William Apess's "Tale of blood" -- 10. Haunted Hawthorne -- 11. Conclusion
Dimensions
24 cm.
Extent
199 pages
Isbn
9780874519433
Isbn Type
(alk. paper)
Lccn
99035382
Media category
unmediated
Media MARC source
rdamedia
Media type code
  • n
System control number
  • (OCoLC)41565191
  • (OCoLC)ocm41565191

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