Possible Pasts represents a landmark in early American studies, bringing to that field the theoretical richness and innovative potential of the scholarship on colonial discourse and postcolonial theory. Drawing on the methods and interpretive insights of history, anthropology, history of art, folklore, and textual analysis, its authors explore the cultural processes by which individuals and societies become colonial. Rather than define early America in terms of conventional geographical, chronological, or subdisciplinary boundaries, their essays span landscapes from New England to Peru, time periods from the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century, and topics from religion to race and novels to nationalism.
In his introduction Robert Blair St. George offers an overview of the genealogy of ideas and key terms appearing in the book. Part I, "Interrogating America," then challenges readers to rethink the meaning of "early America" and its relation to postcolonial theory. In Part II, "Translation and Transculturation," essays explore how both Europeans and native peoples viewed such concepts as dissent, witchcraft, family piety, and race. The construction of individual identity and agency in Philadelphia is the focus of Part III, "Shaping Subjectivities." Finally, Part IV, "Oral Performance and Personal Power," considers the ways in which political authority and gendered resistance were established in early America.
Robert Blair St. George is Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of Conversing by Signs: Poetics of Implication in Colonial New England Culture.
What People are Saying About This
Rhys Isaac
'Early America' is greatly enlarged both geographically and conceptually by Possible Pasts, a richly diverse set of ethnographic studies of past life and expressive forms from both continents and the islands of the New World. The theme of 'colonization' addresses the most powerful and pervasive shaping processes in the history of the last half millennium.
James A. Henretta
Possible Pasts is required reading for all historians and literary scholars interested in textual analysiscritical theory, and the cultural construction of reality, and it is highly recommended for everyone in the field of early American studies. Provocative in tone and approach, the succinctly written essays in Robert Blair St. George's volume suggest the transformative potential of the new scholarship; the very best of them advance new and exciting interpretations, particularly with respect to women's lives and gender identity.
