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We Have Never Been Anti-Exceptionalists.
- Source :
-
American Literary History . Summer2019, Vol. 31 Issue 2, pe1-e17. 17p. - Publication Year :
- 2019
-
Abstract
- The project of repudiating the exceptionalism associated with the Cold War–era founders of American studies came at the same academic moment as the canon debates—they both started in the mid-1980s. They are twinned countercultural movements, and at their origin they were explicitly interrelated. We've debunked American exceptionalism, but we're still practically glued to the old-fashioned canon—at least where the nineteenth century is concerned. This essay takes up the incompletion at the heart of what began as a conjoined movement against the exceptionalisms of national and literary canons, arguing that our attachment to canonical authors indexes the larger insolvency of our anti-exceptionalist project. It argues for a different critical methodology, one grounded in self-criticism, incompletion, and imperfection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 08967148
- Volume :
- 31
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- American Literary History
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 136160837
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1093/alh/ajz017