1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910553083303321

Autore

Sawallisch Nele

Titolo

Fugitive Borders : Black Canadian Cross-Border Literature at Mid-Nineteenth Century / Nele Sawallisch

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Bielefeld, : transcript Verlag, 2018

ISBN

3-8394-4502-7

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (218 pages)

Collana

American Culture Studies ; 13

Classificazione

HQ 4045

Disciplina

810.9/896071

Soggetti

Black Canada; 19th Century; Slave Narrative; Life Writing; Borders; Literary History; Literature; America; Cultural History; American Studies; Migration; Literary Studies

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Canada

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter    1  Contents    5  Acknowledgments    7  Introduction    9  1. Fugitive Borders    13  2. Religion    35  3. Radicalism    59  4. Heroism    101  5. Community    151  Conclusion    199  Bibliography    205

Sommario/riassunto

Fugitive Borders explores a new archive of 19th-century autobiographical writing by black authors in North America. For that purpose, Nele Sawallisch examines four different texts written by formerly enslaved men in the 1850s that emerged in or around the historical region of Canada West (now known as Ontario) and that defy the genre conventions of the classic slave narrative. Instead, these texts demonstrate originality in expressing complex, often ambivalent attitudes towards the so-called Canadian Promised Land and contribute to a form of textual community-building across national borders. In the context of emerging national discourses before Canada's Confederation in 1867, they offer alternatives to the hegemonic narrative of the white settler nation.

»›Fugitive Borders‹ shows how Black cross-border life writing at midnineteenth century speaks of the history of slavery and the experiences of the formerly enslaved and fugitive with idiosyncratic voices. Undoubtedly, readers of ›Fugitive Borders‹ will want to hear,



understand, and learn more from them.«  Paula von Gleich, American Studies, 65/1 (2020)