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Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, City University of New York)

Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction By Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, City University of New York)

Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction by Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, City University of New York)

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Summary

The book is a study of the ways that white radicals deployed the physical and literary image of amputation during the Civil War and Reconstruction to argue for full Black citizenship and against a national reconciliation that reimposed white supremacy. It gives readers a new way to think about the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction Summary

Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction by Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, City University of New York)

During the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of men were injured, and underwent amputation of hands, feet, limbs, fingers, and toes. As the war drew to a close, their disabled bodies came to represent the future of a nation that had been torn apart, and how it would be put back together again. In her authoritative and engagingly written new book, Sarah Chinn claims that amputation spoke both corporeally and metaphorically to radical white writers, ministers, and politicians about the need to attend to the losses of the Civil War by undertaking a real and actual Reconstruction that would make African Americans not just legal citizens but actual citizens of the United States. She traces this history, reviving little-known figures in the struggle for Black equality, and in so doing connecting the racial politics of 150 years ago with contemporary debates about justice and equity.

Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction Reviews

'Juxtaposing detailed accounts of literary representations with true stories from soldiers who lost limbs, this compelling book presents valuable critical and historical perspectives on how amputation served as a visible reminder of loss during and after the Civil War.' Shirley Samuels, Cornell University
'From beginning to end, the book is written with brio and authority. It has powerful new things to say about the visual and literary culture of Reconstruction Chinn writes an engaging and beautiful prose informed by her wide reading in the scholarship of Reconstruction. She knows the history and the literature of the period. She also knows a good deal about photography and other forms of visual representation. The book is quite moving, especially given its focus on scarred and marred bodies.' Robert S. Levine, University of Maryland

About Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, City University of New York)

Sarah E. Chinn is Professor of English at Hunter College, CUNY. She is the author of three other books: Technology and the Logic of American Racism: A Cultural History of the Body as Evidence (2000), The Invention of Modern Adolescence: The Children of Immigrants in Turn-of-the-Century America (2007), and Spectacular Men: Race, Gender, and Nation on the Early American Stage (2017), which won the 2017 George Freedley Memorial Award for an exemplary work in the field of live theatre or performance from the American Theatre Library Association.

Table of Contents

Introduction: a new kind of nation: Amputation, reconstruction, and the promise of black citizenship; 1. Giving up the ghost: the dead child vs. the amputated limb; 2. 'Strewn promiscuously about': limbs and what happens to them; 3. 1860 or 1865? Amending the national body; 4. 'I don't care a rag for the Union as it was': amputation, the past, and the work of the Freedmen's Bureau; 5. Shaking hands: manual politics and the end of reconstruction; Conclusion: Eloquent Emptiness.

Additional information

NGR9781009442695
9781009442695
1009442694
Disability, the Body, and Radical Intellectuals in the Literature of the Civil War and Reconstruction by Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, City University of New York)
Sarah E. Chinn (Hunter College, City University of New York)
Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture
New
Hardback
Cambridge University Press
2024-07-04
280
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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