Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

What did it mean for people of color in nineteenth-century America to speak or write "white"? More specifically, how many and what kinds of meaning could such "white" writing carry? In ReWriting White, Todd Vogel looks at how America has racialized language and aesthetic achievement. To make his point, he showcases the surprisingly complex interactions between four nineteenth-century writers of color and the "standard white English" they adapted for their own moral, political, and social ends. The African American, Native American, and Chinese American writers Vogel discusses delivered their messages in a manner that simultaneously demonstrated their command of the dominant discourse of their times-using styles and addressing forums considered above their station-and fashioned a subversive meaning in the very act of that demonstration. The close readings and meticulous archival research in ReWriting White upend our conventional expectations, enrich our understanding of the dynamics of hegemony and cultural struggle, and contribute to the efforts of other cutting-edge contemporary scholars to chip away at the walls of racial segregation that have for too long defined and defaced the landscape of American literary and cultural studies.

Race in literature. --- Ethnicity in literature. --- Minorities in literature. --- Ethnic groups in literature. --- Social classes in literature. --- Minorities --- American literature --- Literature and society --- Minorities as a theme in literature --- Intellectual life. --- History and criticism. --- History --- Minority authors --- Ethnic groups in literature --- Ethnicity in literature --- Minorities in literature --- Race in literature --- Social classes in literature --- English literature --- Agrarians (Group of writers) --- Minority authors&delete& --- History and criticism --- Intellectual life