The Fiction of Americajuxtaposes classic literature of the American Renaissance with twentieth-century popular culture—pairing, for instance, Ralph Waldo Emerson withFinding Nemo, Walt Whitman with Spiderman, and Hester Prynne with Madonna—to investigate how the “Americanness” of American culture constitutes itself in the interplay of the cultural imaginary and performance. Conceptualizing “America” as a transhistorical practice, Susanne Hamscha reveals disruptive, spectral moments in the narrative of “America,” which confront American culture with its inherent inconsistencies.
Susanne Hamschais a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Göttingen.
Acknowledgments
Prologue
The Fiction of America—America as Fiction
Act I
Setting the Stage—or, Performing ‘America’ on the Streets of Philadelphia
Act II
Will the Real American Please Stand Up! Americanness (Dis) Embodied
Scenario 1, A Fish Called Emerson: The American Scholar and “Finding Nemo”
Scenario 2, From Walden Pong to “Jurassic Park”: The Re(dis)covery of America
Scenario 3, S(w)inging the Self: Whitman, “Spider-Man,” and the Body Politic
Act III
American Idols: The Anatomy of Race and Gender
Scenario 1, The Shark Has Pretty Teeth: Straight White Masculinity and Ethnic Ventriloquism in “Moby-Dick” and “Jaws”
Scenario 2, Ghostly Femininity: Parody and Dissent in “The Scarlet Letter” and Madonna
Epilogue
The Spls)
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