The claims of experience : autobiography and American democracy / Nolan Bennett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bennett, Nolan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790.

Franklin, Benjamin.

Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895.

Douglass, Frederick.

Adams, Henry, 1838-1918.

Adams, Henry.

Goldman, Emma, 1869-1940.

Goldman, Emma.

Chambers, Whittaker.

Autobiography--Political aspects--United States.

Autobiography.

United States--Biography--History and criticism.

United States.

Democracy--United States.

Democracy.

Biography.

Genre:

Biographies.

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xi, 257 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019]

Summary:

"Why have so many figures throughout American history proclaimed their life stories when confronted by great political problems? The Claims of Experience provides a new theory for what makes autobiography political throughout the history of the United States and today. Across five chapters, Nolan Bennett examines the democratic crises that encouraged a diverse cast of figures to bear their stories: Benjamin Franklin amid the revolutionary era and its aftermath, Frederick Douglass in the antebellum and abolitionist movements, Henry Adams in the Gilded Age and its anxieties of industrial change, Emma Goldman among the first Red Scare and state opposition to radical speech, and Whittaker Chambers amid the second Red Scare that initiated the anticommunist turn of modern conservatism. These authors made what Bennett calls a "claim of experience": a life narrative that offers its audience new community by restoring to readers and author alike from prevailing political authorities the power to remake and make meaning of their lives. Whereas political theorists and activists have often seen autobiography to be too individualist or a mere documentary source of evidence, this theory reveals the democratic power that life narratives both written and spoken have offered those on the margins and in the mainstream. When successful, claims of experience redistribute popular authority from unsettled institutions and identities to new democratic visions. This book offers both a method for understanding the politics of life narrative and a call to anticipate claims of experience as they appear today. American politics, democracy, authority, life writing, autobiography, Benjamin Franklin, Frederick Douglass, Henry Adams, Emma Goldman, Whittaker Chambers"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

1 Benjamin Franklin's Imperfections p. 27

2 Frederick Douglass, from Narration to Denunciation p. 54

3 Henry Adams on the Ends of Education p. 82

4 The Adversity and Empathy of Emma Goldman p. 109

5 Whittaker Chambers and the Confessions of Ex-Communists p. 137.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780190060695

0190060697

OCLC:

1104049471