Ghosts and Their Hosts : The Colonization of the Invisible World in Early America.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blažan, Sladja.

Series:

Writing the Early Americas Series

Language:

English

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (306 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

La Vergne : University of Virginia Press, 2024.

Summary:

"Ghost stories as a window on the American settler psyche In this innovative book, Sladja Blažan explains the foundational role of ghost stories in fostering the cultural imaginary, offering a medium for framing political ideologies, philosophical thought, racial anxieties, and social concerns. Ghosts and Their Hosts analyzes American ghost stories, considering their role as a settler colonial tool that emerged to help justify land appropriation and human labor exploitation. Blažan breaks with the long tradition of reading ghosts as harbingers of justice, arguing that early American ghost stories worked instead to suppress the presence of non-Europeans through fantasies of European transcultural incorporation. Images of sentient forests and nature possessed by spirits helped develop fixed racial, gendered, and sexualized categories, while authors used ghosts to affirm existing hierarchies and establish new ones. Focusing on the cultural exchanges between Germany, England, France, and the United States around the turn of the nineteenth century, Blažan deploys a groundbreaking ecocritical and comparative approach to shed light on this haunting subject"-- Provided by publisher.

"This book analyzes American ghost stories, considering their role as a settler colonial tool that emerged to help justify land appropriation and human labor exploitation"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Spectral Narratives

1. Instrumentalizing Ghosts: "Free Philosophy" in the Seventeenth Century

2. Counter-Enlightenment: Ghosts and Morality

3. The Voice of Conscience: Settler Colonial Ghost Whisperers

4. The Politics of Absence: Race, Land, and Ecogothic Ghosts

5. The Voice of Nature: The Invisible World and the Great Spirit

6. Feminist Colonialism: Emancipation and Cultural Appropriation

7. The Politics of Presence: Ghosts in Slave Narratives

Conclusion: Beyond the Humanist Imagination

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Writing the Early Americas.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780813952406

0813952409

OCLC:

1443489792