![]() | Fleshing Out America: Race, Gender, and the Politics of the Body in American Literature, 1833-1879 Subjects: American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Body Human in literature; Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Sex role in literature; Race in literature; Can we work through the imaginative space of literature to combat the divisive nature of the politics of the body? That is the central question asked of the writings Carolyn Sorisio investigates in Fleshing Out America . The first half of the nineteenth century ushered in an era of powerful scientific and quasi-scientific disciplines that assumed innate differences between the "types" of humankind. Some proponents of slavery and Indian Removal, as well as opponents of women's rights, supplanted the Declaration of Independence's higher law of inborn equality with a new set of "laws" proclaiming the physical inferiority of women, "Negroes," and "Aboriginals." CAROLYN SORISIO is an assistant professor of English at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. |
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