by Christopher Looby
University of Chicago Press, 1996
Paper: 978-0-226-49283-4 | Cloth: 978-0-226-49282-7
Library of Congress Classification PS193.L66 1996
Dewey Decimal Classification 810.9001

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ABOUT THIS BOOK
How is a nation brought into being? In a detailed examination of crucial texts of eighteenth-century American literature, Christopher Looby argues that the United States was self-consciously enacted through the spoken word. Historical material informs and animates theoretical texts by Derrida, Lacan, and others as Looby unravels the texts of Benjamin Franklin, Charles Brockden Brown, and Hugh Henry Brackenridge and connects them to nation-building, political discourse, and self-creation. Correcting the strong emphasis on the importance of print culture in eighteenth-century America, Voicing America uncovers the complex process of early American writers articulating their new nation and reveals a body of literature and a political discourse thoroughly concerned with the power of vocal language.