Record Details     « New Search       Brief Record Full Record MARC Record     Bibliographic Data Control Number muse61333 Control Number Identifier MdBmJHUP Date and Time of Latest Transaction 20180112030017.0 General Information 180109s2018 nyu o 00 0 eng d International Standard Book Number 9780823278473   0823278476   9780823278442 System Control Number (OCoLC)1015878230 Cataloging Source MdBmJHUP MdBmJHUP Library of Congress Call Number E449 .E453 2018 Main Entry - Personal Name Ellis, Cristin, 1978-, author. Title Statement Antebellum Posthuman [electronic resource] : Race and Materiality in the Mid-Nineteenth Century / Cristin Ellis Edition Statement First edition Physical Description 1 online resource (1 PDF (232 pages)) General Note Issued as part of book collections on Project MUSE Formatted Contents Note Introduction. beyond recognition : the problem of antebellum embodiment -- 1. Douglass's animals : racial science and the problem of human equality -- 2. Thoreau's seeds : evolution and the problem of human agency -- 3. Whitman's cosmic body : bioelectricity and the problem of human meaning -- 4. Posthumanism and the problem of social justice : race and materiality in the twenty-first century -- Coda. After romantic posthumanism Summary, Etc. From the eighteenth-century abolitionist motto "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" to the Civil Rights-era declaration "I AM a Man," antiracism has engaged in a struggle for the recognition of black humanity. It has done so, however, even as the very definition of the human has been called into question by the biological sciences. While this conflict between liberal humanism and biological materialism animates debates in posthumanism and critical race studies today, Antebellum Posthuman argues that it first emerged as a key question in the antebellum era. In a moment in which the authority of science was increasingly invoked to defend slavery and other racist policies, abolitionist arguments underwent a profound shift, producing a new, materialist strain of antislavery. Engaging the works of Douglass, Thoreau, and Whitman, and Dickinson, Cristin Ellis identifies and traces the emergence of an antislavery materialism in mid-nineteenth century American literature, placing race at the center of the history of posthumanist thought. Turning to contemporary debates now unfolding between posthumanist and critical race theorists, Ellis demonstrates how this antebellum posthumanism highlights the difficulty of reconciling materialist ontologies of the human with the project of social justice Subject Added Entry - Topical Term Humanism -- United States -- History -- 19th century   Racism -- United States -- History -- 19th century Subject Added Entry - Geographic Name United States -- Race relations -- History -- 19th century Index Term - Genre/Form Electronic books   Electronic books. -- local Added Entry - Corporate Name Project Muse,. distributor Added Entry - Corporate Name Project Muse           Physical Location           Digital Copy Not Available          Add to Book Cart  |   Download MARC