Going underground : race, space, and the subterranean in the nineteenth-century United States / Lara Langer Cohen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cohen, Lara Langer, author.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--African American authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--19th century--History and criticism.

African Americans--Intellectual life--19th century.

African Americans.

Literature and society--United States--History--19th century.

Literature and society.

Politics and literature--United States--History--19th century.

Politics and literature.

African Americans--Race identity.

African Americans--History--19th century.

United States--Race relations--History--19th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 277 pages) : illustrations.

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 2023.

System Details:

Mode of Access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

"First popularized by newspaper coverage of the Underground Railroad in the 1840s, the underground serves as a metaphor for subversive activity that remains central to our political vocabulary. In Going Underground, Lara Langer Cohen excavates the long history of this now-familiar idea while seeking out versions of the underground that got left behind along the way. Outlining how the underground's figurative sense first took shape through the associations of literal subterranean spaces with racialized Blackness, she examines a vibrant world of nineteenth-century US subterranean literature that includes Black radical manifestos, anarchist periodicals, sensationalist exposés of the urban underworld, manuals for sex magic, and the initiation rites of secret societies. Cohen finds that the undergrounds in this literature offer sites of political possibility that exceed the familiar framework of resistance, suggesting that nineteenth-century undergrounds can inspire new modes of world-making and world-breaking for a time when this world feels increasingly untenable."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

A Basement Shut Off and Forgotten during the Nineteenth Century

The "Blackness of Darkness" in Mammoth Cave

Early Black Radical Undergrounds

The Underground Railroad's Undergrounds

The Depths of Astonishment: City Mysteries and Subterranean Unknowability

"To drop beneath the floors of the outer world": Paschal Beverly Randolph's Occult Undergrounds

Subterranean Fire: Anarchist Visions of the Underground

Staying Underground.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Print version: Cohen, Lara Langer. Going underground.

ISBN:

9781478024125

1478024127

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.