TY  - BOOK
AU  - McBride,Dwight
TI  - Impossible Witnesses: Truth, Abolitionism, and Slave Testimony 
SN  - 9780814756041
AV  - PS366.A35 M38 2001 
U1  - 306.3/62/0973 
PY  - 2002///]
CY  - New York, NY : 
PB  - New York University Press, 
KW  - African Americans in literature
KW  - African Americans
KW  - History and criticism
KW  - Biography
KW  - Intellectual life
KW  - American prose literature
KW  - United States
KW  - African American authors
KW  - 19th century
KW  - Antislavery movements
KW  - History
KW  - Autobiography
KW  - Enslaved persons
KW  - Enslaved persons' writings, American
KW  - Slavery in literature
KW  - SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies
KW  - bisacsh
N1  - restricted access
N2  - Even the most cursory review of black literary production during the nineteenth century indicates that its primary concerns were the issues of slavery, racial subjugation, abolitionist politics and liberation. How did the writers of these narratives "bear witness" to the experiences they describe? At a time when a hegemonic discourse on these subjects already existed, what did it mean to "tell the truth" about slavery? Impossible Witnesses explores these questions through a study of fiction, poetry, essays, and slave narratives from the abolitionist era. Linking the racialized discourses of slavery and Romanticism, it boldly calls for a reconfiguration of U.S. and British Romanticism that places slavery at its center. Impossible Witnesses addresses some of the major literary figures and representations of slavery in light of discourses on natural rights and law, offers an account of Foucauldian discourse analysis as it applies to the problem of "bearing witness," and analyzes specific narratives such as "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," and "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." A work of great depth and originality, Impossible Witnesses renders traditional interpretations of Romanticism impossible and places Dwight A. McBride at the forefront of studies in race and literature
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780814759738
UR  - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780814759738/original
ER  -