U.S. Orientalisms

Race, Nation, and Gender in Literature, 1790-1890

Author: Malini Johar Schueller
ISBN: 9780472087747

U.S. Orientalisms is the first extensive and politicized study of nineteenth century American discourses that helped build an idea of nationhood with control over three "Orients": the "Barbary" Orient; the Orient of Egypt; and the Orient of India. Malini Johar Schueller persuasively argues that current notions about the East can be better understood as latter-day manifestations of the earlier U.S. visions of the Orient refracted variously through millennial fervor, racial-cultural difference, and ideas of Westerly empire. This book begins with an examination of the literature of the "Barbary" Orient generated by the U.S. Algerian conflict in the late eighteenth century in the works of such writers as Royall Tyler, Susanna Rowson, and Washington Irving. It then moves on to the Near East Orientalist literature of the nineteenth century in light of Egyptology, theories of race, and the growth of missionary fervor in writers such as John DeForest, Maria Susanna Cummins, Herman Melville, Ed

Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publish Date: 2001

Subjects: Literary Criticism / General, Literary Criticism / American / General, Social Science / Popular Culture

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Cross-Cultural Center (Location: Middle-East/Desi Studies (MEDS))