Title: Haunted by empire : geographies of intimacy in North American history /
Authors: Stoler, Ann Laura.
Publisher: Duke University Press,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Intimacy (Psychology) Political aspects United States History.; Intimacy (Psychology) Social aspects United States History.; United States Territories and possessions History.
Abstract: "A milestone in U.S. historiography, Haunted by Empire brings postcolonial critiques to bear on North American history and draws on that history to question the analytic conventions of postcolonial studies. The contributors to this innovative collection examine the critical role of "domains of the intimate" in the consolidation of colonial power. They demonstrate how the categories of difference underlying colonialism -- the distinctions advanced as the justification for the colonizer's rule of the colonized -- were enacted and reinforced in intimate realms from the bedroom to the classroom to the medical examining room. Together the essays focus attention on the politics of comparison -- on how colonizers differentiated one group or set of behaviors from another -- and on the circulation of knowledge and ideologies within and between imperial projects. Ultimately, this collection forces a rethinking of what historians choose to compare and of the epistemological grounds on which those choices are based. Haunted by Empire includes Ann Laura Stoler's seminal essay "Tense and Tender Ties" as well as her bold introduction, which carves out the exciting new analytic and methodological ground animated by this comparative venture. The contributors engage in a lively cross-disciplinary conversation, drawing on history, anthropology, literature, philosophy, and public health. They address such topics as the regulation of Hindu marriages and gay sexuality in the early-twentieth-century United States; the framing of multiple-choice intelligence tests; the deeply entangled histories of Asian, African, and native peoples in the Americas; the racial categorizations used in the 1890 U.S. census; and the politics of race and space in French colonial New Orleans. Linda Gordon, Catherine Hall, and Nancy F. Cott each provide a concluding essay reflecting on the innovations and implications of the arguments advanced in Haunted by Empire."--Page 4 of cover.
Contents: Intimidations of empire : predicaments of the tactile and unseen / Ann Laura Stoler -- Tense and tender ties : the politics of comparison in North American history and (post) colonial studies / Ann Laura Stoler -- Samoa's half-castes and some frontiers of comparison / Damon Salesa -- States of hygiene : race "improvement" and biomedical citizenship in Australia and the colonial Philippines / Warwick Anderson -- Adjudicating intimacies on U.S. frontiers / Nayan Shah -- Proper caresses and prudent distance : a how-to manual from colonial Louisiana / Shannon Lee Dawdy -- "His kingdom for a kiss" : Indians and intimacy in the narrative of John Marrant / Tiya Miles -- The intimacies of four continents / Lisa Lowe -- Body work in the antebellum United States / Kathleen Brown -- Fractions and fictions in the United States census of 1890 / Martha Hodes -- The fair ensemble : Kate Chopin in St. Louis in 1904 / Laura Wexler -- "The perfect mistress of Russian economy" : sighting the intimate on a colonial Alaskan terrain, 1784-1821 / Gwenn A. Miller -- An empire of tests : psychometrics and the paradoxes of nationalism in the Americas / Alexandra Minna Stern -- Making "American" families : transnational adoption and U.S. Latin America policy / Laura Briggs -- The darkness that enters the home : the gender politics of prostitution during the Philippine-American war / Paul A. Kramer -- Ordering others : U.S. financial advisers in the early twentieth century / Emily S. Rosenberg -- Internal colonialism and gender / Linda Gordon -- Commentary / Catherine Hall -- Afterword / Nancy F. Cott.