The Logic of Slavery: Debt, Technology, and Pain in American Literature (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Illustrated, 10/25/2012
EAN 9781107607811, ISBN10: 1107607817
Paperback, 264 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
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.
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.