Belonging and Narrative: A Theory of the American Novel

Laura Bieger

Open Access Published by transcript Verlag 2018

Belonging and Narrative

A Theory of the American Novel

Laura Bieger
Funded by: Knowledge Unlatched - KU Select 2019: Backlist Collection

In the series Lettre

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839446003

Overview
Contents

About this book

Why did the novel become so popular in the past three centuries, and how did the American novel contribute to this trend? As a key provider of the narrative frames and formulas needed by modern individuals to give meaning and mooring to their lives. Drawing on phenomenological hermeneutics, human geography and social psychology, Laura Bieger contends that belonging is not a given; it is continuously produced by narrative. Against the current emphasis on metaphors of movement and destabilization, she explores the salience and significance of home. Challenging views of narrative as a mechanism of ideology, she approaches narrative as a practical component of dwelling in the world - and the novel a primary place-making agent.

Author / Editor information

Laura Bieger is Professor of American Studies, Political Theory and Culture the University of Groningen. She held teaching and research positions at Universität Freiburg, FU Berlin, UC Berkeley, Universität Wien and IFK Wien. Her essays have appeared in New Literary History, Amerikastudien/American Studies, Studies in American Naturalism, Narrative and ZAA. She is currently working on reading publics in U.S. democracy.

Reviews

Besprochen in:
IDA-NRW, 4 (2018)

Supplementary Materials

Leseprobe

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	1
Contents Open Access Download PDF	5
Preface Open Access Download PDF	7
1. Belonging, Narrative, and the Art of the Novel Open Access Download PDF	13
2. Poisoned Letters from a Gothic Frontier Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly Open Access Download PDF	41
3. The Art of Attachment Sarah Orne Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs Open Access Download PDF	73
4. Dwelling in What is Found Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep Open Access Download PDF	105
5. Of Cranes and Brains Richard Powers’s The Echo Maker Open Access Download PDF	135
Works Cited Open Access Download PDF	163

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 182
Keywords: American Novel; Space and Place; Literature; America; American Studies; Cultural History; Cultural Studies; Literary Studies

eBook

Published: November 27, 2018
ISBN: 9783839446003