Cannibal Fictions: American Explorations of Colonialism, Race, Gender, and Sexuality
Jeff Berglund
Aga 2006 · Univ of Wisconsin Press
3.0star
1 isibuyekezo
I-Ebook
256
Amakhasi
Mayelana nale ebook
Objects of fear and fascination, cannibals have long signified an elemental "otherness," an existence outside the bounds of normalcy. In the American imagination, the figure of the cannibal has evolved tellingly over time, as Jeff Berglund shows in this study encompassing a strikingly eclectic collection of cultural, literary, and cinematic texts.
Cannibal Fictions brings together two discrete periods in U.S. history: the years between the Civil War and World War I, the high-water mark in America's imperial presence, and the post-Vietnam era, when the nation was beginning to seriously question its own global agenda. Berglund shows how P. T. Barnum, in a traveling exhibit featuring so-called "Fiji cannibals," served up an alien "other" for popular consumption, while Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Tarzan of the Apes series tapped into similar anxieties about the eruption of foreign elements into a homogeneous culture. Turning to the last decades of the twentieth century, Berglund considers how treatments of cannibalism variously perpetuated or subverted racist, sexist, and homophobic ideologies rooted in earlier times. Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes invokes cannibalism to new effect, offering an explicit critique of racial, gender, and sexual politics (an element to a large extent suppressed in the movie adaptation). Recurring motifs in contemporary Native American writing suggest how Western expansion has, cannibalistically, laid the seeds of its own destruction. And James Dobson's recent efforts to link the pro-life agenda to allegations of cannibalism in China testify still further to the currency and pervasiveness of this powerful trope.
By highlighting practices that preclude the many from becoming one, these representations of cannibalism, Berglund argues, call into question the comforting national narrative of e pluribus unum.
Cannibal Fictions brings together two discrete periods in U.S. history: the years between the Civil War and World War I, the high-water mark in America's imperial presence, and the post-Vietnam era, when the nation was beginning to seriously question its own global agenda. Berglund shows how P. T. Barnum, in a traveling exhibit featuring so-called "Fiji cannibals," served up an alien "other" for popular consumption, while Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Tarzan of the Apes series tapped into similar anxieties about the eruption of foreign elements into a homogeneous culture. Turning to the last decades of the twentieth century, Berglund considers how treatments of cannibalism variously perpetuated or subverted racist, sexist, and homophobic ideologies rooted in earlier times. Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes invokes cannibalism to new effect, offering an explicit critique of racial, gender, and sexual politics (an element to a large extent suppressed in the movie adaptation). Recurring motifs in contemporary Native American writing suggest how Western expansion has, cannibalistically, laid the seeds of its own destruction. And James Dobson's recent efforts to link the pro-life agenda to allegations of cannibalism in China testify still further to the currency and pervasiveness of this powerful trope.
By highlighting practices that preclude the many from becoming one, these representations of cannibalism, Berglund argues, call into question the comforting national narrative of e pluribus unum.
Izilinganiso nezibuyekezo
3.0
1 isibuyekezo
Mayelana nomlobi
Jeff Berglund is assistant professor of English at Northern Arizona University.
Ulwazi lokufunda
Amasmathifoni namathebulethi
Faka uhlelo lokusebenza lwe-Google Play Amabhuku lwe-Android ne-iPad/iPhone. Livunyelaniswa ngokuzenzakalela ne-akhawunti yakho liphinde likuvumele ukuthi ufunde uxhunywe ku-inthanethi noma ungaxhunyiwe noma ngabe ukuphi.
Amakhompyutha aphathekayo namakhompyutha
Ungalalela ama-audiobook athengwe ku-Google Play usebenzisa isiphequluli sewebhu sekhompuyutha yakho.
Ama-eReaders namanye amadivayisi
Ukuze ufunde kumadivayisi e-e-ink afana ne-Kobo eReaders, uzodinga ukudawuniloda ifayela futhi ulidlulisele kudivayisi yakho. Landela imiyalelo Yesikhungo Sosizo eningiliziwe ukuze udlulise amafayela kuma-eReader asekelwayo.
