Читать книгу American Quaker Romances. Building the Myth of the White Christian Nation онлайн

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Chapter one will specifically deal with how historical narratives can be used as a mirror for the present and a way of articulating contemporary anxieties and concerns, not only on a personal level, but also on a national one. It will also offer an overview of the main historical periods that the romances under analysis have chosen as their background, as well as the settings most often favored by their authors. All in all, it will show how these historical romances commodify history to sell a biased narrative of the nation’s origins. Chapter two will focus on the question of gender roles and the complicated balance the novels maintain between conservative and progressive ideas. Chapter three will concentrate on another commodification process, though this time of a religion, i.e., Quakerism, whose minority status and outer signifiers (mainly, plain speech and plain dress) favor processes of appropriation and exoticization. This section will explain the said processes, as well as the causes that draw writers and readers alike to Christian and secular romances with Quaker protagonists. Chapter four will deal with the issue of race relations, emphasizing the problematic representations of characters of minoritized races that prevail in the romances under analysis.