Late last week, Chris Freeburg wrote to say that he had just received the first advance copy of his new book. As always, that's my cue to post/boast about it here!
Freeburg's book, Melville and the Idea of Blackness: Race and Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century America has been published by Cambridge University Press as part of its distinguished, ongoing series "Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture."
Freeburg is a scholar with great philosophical and theoretical range and part of what makes this particular book unique is its bid to reintegrate intellectual history with material and cultural histories of race in 19th-century America. Here is the book description, pasted in from the Cambridge University Press website:
"By examining the unique problems that 'blackness' signifies in
Moby-Dick, Pierre, 'Benito Cereno' and 'The Encantadas', Christopher
Freeburg analyzes how Herman Melville grapples with the social realities
of racial difference in nineteenth-century America. Where Melville's
critics typically read blackness as either a metaphor for the haunting
power of slavery or an allegory of moral evil, Freeburg asserts that
blackness functions as the site where Melville correlates the
sociopolitical challenges of transatlantic slavery and U.S. colonial
expansion with philosophical concerns about mastery. By focusing on
Melville's iconic interracial encounters, Freeburg reveals the important
role blackness plays in Melville's portrayal of characters' arduous
attempts to seize their own destiny, amass scientific knowledge and
perfect themselves. A valuable resource for scholars and graduate
students in American literature, this text will also appeal to those
working in American, African American and postcolonial studies."
Congratulations!
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
LAS Awards
As the start of a new semester slouches towards us, let me take as moment to recognize some faculty members affiliated with the English Department who were awarded prestigious and highly-competitive awards last year by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. These awards all warrant individual congratulations, to be sure, but I also take them as an indication and manifestation of the department's overall strength and depth. And regular readers of this blog will remember that I already had occasion last Spring to kvell about the LAS teaching awards won by Jim Hansen and Kathryn Walkiewicz.
Janice Harrington and Jodi Byrd (whose primary departmental affiliation is American Indian Studies, but who also holds an appointment in English) were named as Helen Corley Petit Scholars for 2012-13. This is an honor given annually to exceptionally successful newly-tenured faculty members in the college of Liberal Arts and Sciences in recognition of superior achievement in research, teaching, and service.
And both Renee Trilling and (again!) Jodi Byrd were honored among this year's recipients of LAS's Conrad Humanities Scholar Awards. The Conrad Humanities Scholar program (made possible by the extraordinary generosity of Arlys Streitmatter Conrad) provides recognition and research support for outstanding humanities scholars in the college if Liberal Arts and Sciences over a five year period.
I couldn't be happier to see my colleagues receive these awards! They are all wonderful and utterly deserving--brilliant, hard-working, dedicated people who make life better for everyone in the department and the university. Congratulations!
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