Title: The genius of place : the geographic imagination in the early republic /
Authors: Apap, Christopher C., 1973-
Year: 2016
Subjects: American literature History and criticism; Regionalism in literature.; National characteristics, American, in literature.; Local color in literature.; Nationalism in literature.; American literature.; Civilization; Local color in literature.; National characteristics, American, in literature.; Nationalism in literature.; Regionalism in literature.; United States Civilization; United States
Abstract: The Genius of Place examines how, after the War of 1812, concerns about the scale of the nation resulted in a fundamental reorientation of American identity away from the Atlantic or global ties that held sway in the early republic and toward more localized forms of identification. Instead of addressing the sweep of the nation, American authors, artists, geographers, and politicians shifted from the larger reach of the globe to the more manageable scope of the local and sectional. Paradoxically, that local representation became the primary mode through which early Americans construed their emerging national identity. This newfound cultural obsession with locality impacted the literary consolidation and representation of key American imagined places New England, the plantation, the West in the decades between 1816 and 1836. Apap's examination of the intersections between local and national representations and exploration of the myths of space and place that shaped U.S. identity through the nineteenth century will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary readership.
Contents: Introduction : "Let us bind the nation together" -- Shifting perspectives -- Sedgwick's sectional picturesque -- The sectional middle ground -- The genius of latitude -- Southern interventions in the wake of crisis -- Western reorientations -- Placing the native in the era of removal -- Walker's African American emplacement -- "Build, therefore, your own world".