A Question of Character Scientific Racism and the Genres of American Fiction 1892 1912

Boeckmann, Cathy

ISBN 10: 0817310215 / ISBN 13: 9780817310219

Published by Uni. Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, 2000

About this Item

like new copy and jacket.

Seller Inventory # 8259

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Question of Character Scientific Racism and the Genres of American Fiction 1892 1912
• Publisher: Uni. Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0817310215
• ISBN 13: 9780817310219
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature

About this title

Synopsis

Boeckmann links character, literary genre, and science, revealing how major literary works both contributed to and disrupted the construction of race in turn-of-the-century America.

In A Question of Character, Cathy Boeckmann establishes a strong link between racial questions and the development of literary traditions at the end of the 19th century in America. This period saw the rise of "scientific racism," which claimed that the races were distinguished not solely by exterior appearance but also by a set of inherited character traits. As Boeckmann explains, this emphasis on character meant that race was not only a thematic concern in the literature of the period but also a generic or formal one as well.

Boeckmann explores the intersections between race and literary history by tracing the language of character through both scientific and literary writing. Nineteenth-century pseudo-sciences such as phrenology and physiognomy had a vocabulary for discussing racial character that overlapped conceptually with the conventions for portraying race in literature. Through close readings of novels by Thomas Dixon, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Charles Chesnutt, and James Weldon Johnson—each of which deals with a black character "passing" as white—Boeckmann shows how this emphasis on character relates to the shift from romantic and sentimental fiction to realism. Because each of these genres had very specific conventions regarding the representation of character, genres often dictated how races could be depicted.
 

About the Author

Catherine Ann Boeckmann,an independent scholar, is Communication Specialist at McKinsey & Company in Atlanta.