The logic of slavery
Subtitle: debt, technology, and pain in American literature
By: Tim Armstrong, Royal Holloway, University of London
Series: Cambridge studies in American literature and culture
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge
Language: eng
Number of pages: 252
ISBN-13: 9781107025073; 9781107607811
Subjects: African American authors; Commodification; Slavery in literature; History and criticism; American literature; Slavery; LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General; Slavery in art; Reification; Psychological aspects; Economic aspects; History
Description: "In American history and throughout the Western world, the subjugation perpetuated by slavery has created a unique "culture of slavery." That culture exists as a metaphorical, artistic, and literary tradition attached to the enslaved - human beings whose lives are "owed" to another, who are used as instruments by another, and who must endure suffering in silence. Tim Armstrong explores the metaphorical legacy of slavery in American culture by investigating debt, technology, and pain in African-American literature and a range of other writings and artworks. Armstrong's careful analysis reveals how notions of the slave as a debtor lie hidden in our accounts of the commodified self and how writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rebecca Harding Davis, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison grapple with the pervasive view that slaves are akin to machines. Finally, Armstrong examines how conceptions of the slave as a container of suppressed pain are reflected in disciplines as diverse as art, sculpture, music, and psychology"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Illustrations; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. Slavery, insurance, and sacrifice: the embodiment of capital; 2. Debt, self-redemption, and foreclosure; 3. Machines inside the machine: slavery and technology; 4. The hands of others: sculpture and pain; 5. The sonic veil; 6. Slavery in the mind: trauma and the weather; Notes; Index.