The divided states : unraveling national identities in the twenty-first century / edited by Laura J. Beard and Ricia Anne Chansky.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Beard, Laura J., 1962- editor.

Chansky, Ricia Anne, editor.

Series:

Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography

Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American prose literature--21st century--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

Autobiography.

National characteristics, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (355 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wisconsin : The University of Wisconsin Press, [2023]

Summary:

'What is an "American" identity? The tension between populism and pluralism, between homogeneity and heterogeneity, has marked the United States since its inception. In The Divided States, leading scholars and critics argue that the US is, and has always been, a site where multiple national identities intersect in productive and challenging ways. Scrutinizing conflicting nationalisms and national identities, the authors ask, Whose stories get told and whose do not? Who or what promotes the idea of a unified national identity in the United States? How is the notion of a unified national identity disrupted? What myths and stories bind the US together? How representative are these stories? What are the counternarratives? And, if the idea of national homogeneity is a fallacy, what does tie us together as a nation? Working across auto/biography studies, American studies, and human geography--all of which deal with the current interest in competing narratives, "alternative facts," and accountability--the essays engage in and contribute to critical conversations in classrooms, scholarship, and the public sphere.'--Publisher description.

Contents:

Introduction: Contested lives, contesting lives / Ricia Anne Chansky and Laura J. Beard

Dakobijigaade mii miinawaa Aaba'igaade Gichimookomaanakiing: tied and untied in America / Margaret Noodin

National identity and well-being in US Black women's diaries / Joycelyn Moody

The legacy of conquest in comics: Texas History Movies, Jack Jackson, and Revision / Daniel Worden

"Strange juxtapositions": Elliott Erwitt's visual diary of Cold War America / Steven Hoelscher

We have never been a nation of immigrants: refugee temporality as American identity / Elizabeth Rodrigues

"A small flashlight in a great dark space": Elizabeth Warren, autobiography, and populism / Rachael McLennan

Indians in monumental places: Heid Erdich and Jeff Thomas / Laura J. Beard

Juneteenth / Angela Ards

Archival intervention: surviving the "savage splintering" in Deborah Miranda's Bad Indians / Hertha D. Sweet Wong

Moving beyond the urban/rural divide in Alison Bechdel's Fun Home / Katie Hogan

White privilege and J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy / Stephanie Li

Getting schooled: responses to education as neoliberal identity-formation in US life narratives / Megan Brown

Disabling birth: prognostic certainty and the gestating citizen of the contemporary midwifery movement / Ally Day

Days of reckoning: prospects for life narrative in the 2020s / Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780299338831

0299338835

OCLC:

1351198424