Surveying the American Tropics: A Literary Geography from New York to Rio (American Tropics Towards a Literary Geography LUP) (Volume 2)

American Tropics' refers to a kind of extended Caribbean, an area that includes the southern USA, the Atlantic littoral of Central America, the Caribbean islands, and northern South America. European colonial powers fought intensively here against indigenous populations and against each other for control of land and resources. The regions in the American Tropics share a history in which the dominant fact is the arrival of millions of white Europeans and black Africans; share an environment that is tropical or sub-tropical; and share a socio-economic model (the plantation), whose effects lasted at least well into the twentieth century. The imaginative space of the American Tropics therefore offers a differently centred literary history from those conventionally produced as US, Caribbean, or Latin American literature. This important collection brings together essays by distinguished scholars, including the late Neil Whitehead, Richard Price, Sally Price, and Susan Gillman, that engage with the idea of a literary geography of the American Tropics and that represent the rich diversity of the writing produced within this geographical area. Dedication 6 Contents 8 List of illustrations 10 Introduction • Maria Cristina Fumagalli, Peter Hulme, Owen Robinson, Lesley Wylie 12 A Tree Grows in Bajan Brooklyn: Writing Caribbean New York • Martha Jane Nadell 33 Reading the Novum World: The Literary Geography of Science Fiction in Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao • María del Pilar Blanco 60 Inventing Tropicality: Writing Fever, Writing Trauma in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead and Gardens in the Dunes • Hsinya Huang 86 Imperial Archaeology: The American Isthmus as Contested Scientific Contact Zone • Gesa Mackenthun 112 Space Age Tropics • Mimi Sheller 142 Black Jacobins and New World Mediterraneans • Susan Gillman 170 The Oloffson • Alasdair Pettinger 194 Dark Thresholds in Trinidad: Regarding the Colonial House • Jak Peake 213 Micronations of the Caribbean • Russell McDougall 242 Golden Kings, Cocaine Lords, and the Madness of El Dorado: Guayana as Native and Colonial Imaginary • Neil L. Whitehead 274 Suriname Literary Geography: The Changing Same • Richard Price and Sally Price 296 The Art of Observation: Race and Landscape in A Journey in Brazil • Nina Gerassi-Navarro 324 Notes on Contributors and Editors 357 Index 362 A collection of essays from distinguished international scholars that explore the idea of a literary geography of the American Tropics.