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" Transatlantic triangulations: Captivity narratives and the evolution of Anglo-American identities from the colonial to the early national period "
Neval Avci
Maddock-Dillon, Elizabeth
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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804256
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| Doc. No
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TL49080
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| Call number
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1849023138; 10248666
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| Main Entry
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Gover, Peter Ted
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| Title & Author
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Transatlantic triangulations: Captivity narratives and the evolution of Anglo-American identities from the colonial to the early national period\ Neval AvciMaddock-Dillon, Elizabeth
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| College
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Northeastern University
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| Date
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2016
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| field of study
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English
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2016
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| Page No
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211
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| Note
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Committee members: Aljoe, Nicole N.; Andrea, Bernadette; Boeckeler, Erika M.
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| Note
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Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-369-42700-4
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| Abstract
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This dissertation focuses on the discursive creation and consolidation of Anglo-Colonial and Anglo-American identities from the early modern period through the early nineteenth century. In formulating my argument, I turn to various texts including early modern English accounts of the Islamic East, Barbary captivity narratives written by early modern English and early American subjects, as well as Indian captivity narratives penned by English colonists in North America. In particular, I examine the role of Ottoman/Muslim and English encounters and experiences in relation to Anglo-Atlantic and Anglo-American identity formation. In my examination of these encounters, I complicate the notion of binary opposition as suggested by Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism. Instead, I propose a triangular model in which figures of Islam assume the role of catalyzers and encourage Western subjects to reconsider and reconfigure their identity against their own countrymen. For instance, some early modern Englishmen began reconsidering and reconfiguring their Englishness after gaining a new sense of class-consciousness in their encounters with Ottoman Muslims. In a similar fashion, English colonists in North America embraced a settler-colonial identity in the New World that challenged old English social constructions and promoted skill over noble blood. This new identity was not necessarily forged by pitting the English self against the Native American other but by reconsidering Englishness in the New World setting—and eventually replacing old English values by New English ones—after encounters with Native Americans. In the early national period, American encounters with North African Muslims similarly contributed to the consolidation of an American identity as the new nation gradually separated itself from the mother nation. In Barbary captivity narratives written in this period, American captives often engage in an identity-formation that relies on a national pride vis-à-vis European captives rather than Muslim captors. Drawing on these examples of Anglo-Colonial and Anglo-American identity formation in the age of transatlantic expansion and colonization, I delineate in this project an alternative to the model of identity construction via binary opposition. This triangular model does not entirely override binaries, but it does better encapsulate the Anglo-Atlantic experience in the colonial and early national periods by considering the complexities of cultural relations in the transatlantic contact zone.
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| Subject
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American studies; American literature; Old English; Narratives; Cultural identity; Language culture relationship; Self concept; Historical text analysis; American English; Early Modern English; American Indians; British Irish literature
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| Descriptor
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Language, literature and linguistics;Social sciences;Anglo-American identity;Barbary and indian captivity narratives;Orientalism;Ottoman empire;Settler-colonialism;Travel narratives
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Maddock-Dillon, Elizabeth
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EnglishNortheastern University
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