![]() | Disturbing Calculations: The Economics of Identity in Postcolonial Southern Literature, 1912-2002 Subjects: American literature -- Southern States -- History and criticism; American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Value in literature; Value -- Psychological aspects; Numbers in literature; Fetishism in literature; Narcissism in literature; E; In Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel , Margaret Leonard says, "Never mind about algebra here. That's for poor folks. There's no need for algebra where two and two make five." Moments of mathematical reckoning like this pervade twentieth-century southern literature, says Melanie R. Benson. In fiction by a large, diverse group of authors, including William Faulkner, Anita Loos, William Attaway, Dorothy Allison, and Lan Cao, Benson identifies a calculation-obsessed, anxiety-ridden discourse in which numbers are employed to determine social and racial hierarchies and establish individual worth and identity. MELANIE BENSON TAYLOR is an assistant professor of English and Native American studies at Dartmouth College. She is the author of Disturbing Calculations: The Economics of Identity in Postcolonial Southern Literature, 1912-2002 and Reconstructing the Native South: American Indian Literature and the Lost Cause (both Georgia). |
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