Toward Diversity and Emancipation: (Re-)Narrating Space in the Contemporary American Novel (Lettre)

This book focuses on the pivotal role which space and spatiality assume in plot and narrative discourse of contemporary U.S.-American literary narratives. Embarking from a new, spatialized approach to cultural history and particularly narrative theory that might also prove useful for neighboring philologies, Marcel Thoene hypothesizes that the canon of novels selected represents a dialectic of simultaneous affirmation and subversion of the American space myth. This results in an integrative and emancipatory function of space reflecting the current dynamic toward a more transcultural, diverse and conflictive post-national U.S.-American society. Table of Contents Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Contemporary American (Literary) Studies, the Spatial Turn and Narrativity 1.1 The Significance of Space in American Studies 1.2 Spatial Narrativity and U.S.-American (Literary and Cultural) Studies: Overview and Desideratum 1.3 Theoretical Remarks: Space as Part of the Historical Narrative 1.4 Undisclosed Sit(d)es: Redirecting Scholarly Attention Towards Space 1.5 Foucault’s Heterotopias and Historicized Space 1.6 The Intersection of Space and Time: Locating Spatial Narrativity 2. Key Tropes of Space in U.S.-American Cultural History 2.1 The City upon a Hill: Puritan Spatial Thought and the Beginnings of American Exceptionalism 2.2 The American Revolution – The Modern Nation State as Spatial Entity 2.3 19th-Century American Expansionism: On the Symbiosis of Space, Politics and Ideology 2.4 Transition, Redefinition and Relocation: The Early 20th Century as an Example of Spatial Transformation 2.5 America in the Second Half of the 20th Century: The Spatial Qualities and Metaphorics of Foreign Policy in the Light of Confrontation and War 3. Literary Tradition: Space in Earlier Periods of U.S.-American Literature 4. Re-Thinking Narrative Theory for Contemporary Literature 4.1 Narrative, History, and the Significance of Textuality 4.2 “The Long and Winding Road”: A Basic Taxonomy of Spatially-Induced Narratives 4.3 Outsourcing Space: Towards a Spatial Perspective of Narrative 4.4 Narrative Concepts, Categories and their Spatial Qualities: Narrative and Diegesis 4.5 Theorizing Levels and Dimensions of Narrative Space 4.6 Narrative Heterotopias 5. Jonathan Franzen — The Corrections 5.1 St. Jude as Place and Space: A Pessimistic Representation of the American Midwest 5.2 St. Jude as the Other: Gary Lambert’s Perception of his Hometown 5.3 One Last Christmas: St. Jude’s Significance as Contact Zone 5.4 Re-Spatializing St. Jude: WASP America and the Narrative of Failure 5.5 St. Jude’s Idyll: Space and Spatiality in Alfred Lambert’s Recollection of the American Midwest 5.6 St. Jude and the Burdens of Family Life 5.7 A Simultaneous Collision of Spaces: The Narrative Heterotopia in The Corrections 5.8 Reconfiguring St. Jude: Coming to Terms with The Corrections 5.9 Corrected Spaces: A Reevaluation of St. Jude 6. Toni Morrison’s African American Histor y Trilogy 6.1 Sweet Home vs. 124 Bluestone Road: Spatial Constructs and Imagery in Toni Morrison’s Beloved 6.2 The Urban vs. the Rural: The Role of the City in the Construction of African American Biographies in Jazz 6.3 Paradise: The Representation of an Attempt at Creating African American Spatiality 7. Luis Alberto Urrea — Into the Beautiful North 7.1 Spatial Contrasts in Urrea’s Into the Beautiful North: Tres Camarones and Imaginaries of “Los Yunaites” 7.2 Tijuana and the Border: A Representation of the Borderlands 7.3 Across the Border: Into the Beautiful North as a Narrative of Empowerment 7.4 Bringing it all Back Home: The Representation of Tres Camarones Vis-à-Vis “Los Yunaites” and Nayeli’s Search for her Father 8. Sherman Alexie — Reservation Blues 8.1 Coming Full Circle: Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues and the Spatiality of Tragedy and Failure 8.2 Narrating Enclaves: The Reservation as Space of Isolation and Despair 8.3 “Coyote Springs”: The Journey as a Representation of Overlapping Spaces 8.4 Narrativizing the Reservation Blues: The Cultural Emancipation of Thomas and Chess 9. Conclusion Works Cited a) Literary Works and Other Primary Sources b) Secondary Material This book focuses on the pivotal role which space and spatiality assume in plot and narrative discourse of contemporary U.S.-American literary narratives. Embarking from a new, spatialized approach to cultural history and particularly narrative theory that might also prove useful for neighboring philologies, Marcel Thoene hypothesizes that the canon of novels selected represents a dialectic of simultaneous affirmation and subversion of the American space myth. This results in an integrative and emancipatory function of space reflecting the current dynamic toward a more transcultural, diverse and conflictive post-national U.S.-American society. Space,America,Narrative Theory,Contemporary Novels,Diversity,Cultural History,Literature,American Studies,Theory of Literature,Literary Studies "This book focuses on the pivotal role which space and spatiality assume in plot and narrative discourse of contemporary U.S.-American literary narratives. Embarking from a new, spatialized approach to cultural history and particularly narrative theory that might also prove useful for neighboring philologies, Marcel Thoene hypothesizes that the canon of novels selected represents a dialectic of simultaneous affirmation and subversion of the American space myth. This results in an integrative and emancipatory function of space reflecting the current dynamic toward a more transcultural, diverse and conflictive post-national U.S.-American society."--Publisher description "This book focuses on the pivotal role which space and spatiality assume in plot and narrative discourse of contemporary U.S.-American literary narratives. Embarking from a new, spatialized approach to cultural history and particularly narrative theory that might also prove useful for neighboring philologies, Marcel Thoene hypothesizes that the canon of novels selected represents a dialectic of simultaneous affirmation and subversion of the American space myth. This results in an integrative and emancipatory function of space reflecting the current dynamic toward a more transcultural, diverse and conflictive post-national U.S.-American society"--Provided by publisher