The Captivity Narrative: Enduring Shackles and Emancipating Language of Subjectivity

Benjamin Mark Allen

Nov 2011 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing

About this ebook

The Captivity Narrative offers a collection of scholarly treatises that assess the phenomenon of captivity and the nuanced methods captives have used to express their psychological duress and the manner in which they coped with bondage and its aftermath. The essays reflect a multidisciplinary interest in the subject by offering historical, literary, and philosophical analyses. Topics include 17th-century captivity in Spanish Texas and Puritan New England, 19th-century slavery, Indian captivity in works of fiction, and the poetry, literature, and narratives of prisoners in the United States and England from the 19th to 21st century.

The studies originated in a conference hosted in San Antonio, Texas (2011) by the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association. Contributors include Anne Babson, Jennifer Oakes Curtis, Lanta Davis, Steven Gambrel, Anne Matthews, Alan Smith and Elisabeth Ziemba.

About the author

Benjamin Mark Allen is a historian at South Texas College in the US, and author of Naked and Alone in a Strange New World: Early Modern Captivity and Its Mythos (2009). He is also editor of Captivity, Past and Present: A Compendium of Observations and Interpretations (2010).

Dahia Messara is a translator and literary scholar at the Université de Haute-Alsace in France where she teaches and specializes in Puritan captivity narratives.