Sharada Balachandran Orihuela
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469640921
- eISBN:
- 9781469640945
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469640921.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
In this book, Sharada Balachandran Orihuela examines property ownership and its connections to citizenship, race and slavery, and piracy as seen through the lens of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ...
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In this book, Sharada Balachandran Orihuela examines property ownership and its connections to citizenship, race and slavery, and piracy as seen through the lens of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American literature. Balachandran Orihuela defines piracy expansively, from the familiar concept of nautical pirates and robbery in international waters to postrevolutionary counterfeiting, transnational slave escape, and the illegal trade of cotton across the Americas during the Civil War. Weaving together close readings of American, Chicano, and African American literature with political theory, the author shows that piracy, when represented through literature, has imagined more inclusive and democratic communities than were then possible in reality. The author shows that these subjects are not taking part in unlawful acts only for economic gain. Rather, Balachandran Orihuela argues that piracy might, surprisingly, have served as a public good, representing a form of transnational belonging that transcends membership in any one nation-state while also functioning as a surrogate to citizenship through the ownership of property. These transnational and transactional forms of social and economic life allow for a better understanding of the foundational importance of property ownership and its role in the creation of citizenship.Less
In this book, Sharada Balachandran Orihuela examines property ownership and its connections to citizenship, race and slavery, and piracy as seen through the lens of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American literature. Balachandran Orihuela defines piracy expansively, from the familiar concept of nautical pirates and robbery in international waters to postrevolutionary counterfeiting, transnational slave escape, and the illegal trade of cotton across the Americas during the Civil War. Weaving together close readings of American, Chicano, and African American literature with political theory, the author shows that piracy, when represented through literature, has imagined more inclusive and democratic communities than were then possible in reality. The author shows that these subjects are not taking part in unlawful acts only for economic gain. Rather, Balachandran Orihuela argues that piracy might, surprisingly, have served as a public good, representing a form of transnational belonging that transcends membership in any one nation-state while also functioning as a surrogate to citizenship through the ownership of property. These transnational and transactional forms of social and economic life allow for a better understanding of the foundational importance of property ownership and its role in the creation of citizenship.
Angela Calcaterra
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469646947
- eISBN:
- 9781469646961
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469646947.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, American Colonial Literature
Chapter 1 traces intersections between Indigenous maps in the early eighteenth-century colonial southeast and William Byrd II’s History of the Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina ...
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Chapter 1 traces intersections between Indigenous maps in the early eighteenth-century colonial southeast and William Byrd II’s History of the Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina (written in the years following the 1728 boundary-line survey). It shows that the creation of an Anglo-American colonial border and a text considered highly literary cannot be separated from the real and figurative lines Catawba, Cherokee, Weyanoke, and other Native people drew to distinguish polities in the region. Native peoples’ maps, narratives, and political assertions of space and relations shaped the Virginia-North Carolina boundary dispute and survey at every turn, contributing to the meandering form of Byrd’s History, a text he never completed to his satisfaction. Native creative practices were central to colonial American literatures of space and place.Less
Chapter 1 traces intersections between Indigenous maps in the early eighteenth-century colonial southeast and William Byrd II’s History of the Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina (written in the years following the 1728 boundary-line survey). It shows that the creation of an Anglo-American colonial border and a text considered highly literary cannot be separated from the real and figurative lines Catawba, Cherokee, Weyanoke, and other Native people drew to distinguish polities in the region. Native peoples’ maps, narratives, and political assertions of space and relations shaped the Virginia-North Carolina boundary dispute and survey at every turn, contributing to the meandering form of Byrd’s History, a text he never completed to his satisfaction. Native creative practices were central to colonial American literatures of space and place.
