Community Identity and Political Be

Body, Nation, and Narrative in the Americas reveals the central role of disappearing and dying bodies within the literature of the Americas, arguing that anxiety regarding the power of the state over the citizen is a defining feature of New World cultural productions. This timely investigation contextualizes disappearance and detention within a framework of literary narratives depicting the dangers facing citizens of the Americas. Kristin E. Pitt examines a wide range of sources, from Hawthorne to Faulkner to Danticat, and finds a persistent focus on the body that links contemporary practices of political terror to inter-American concerns about corporality and sovereignty.