...From Africa Through Early America ...

...Theory for Early America This chapter explores the limits and uses of psychoanalysis for the practice of critical history. The argument is that Freud’s insistence on the ultimate indeterminacy of our knowledge is the best guarantee we have of practicing critique. Freud suggested...

...Subjects of Early America This chapter revises an old question: Why do early Americanists say that the Puritans weren’t repressed? And what would be at stake if they were? The answer to the second question, it suggests, is happiness. To address the first, it examines a poem, Edward Johnson’s...

...Contesting the Constitution of College in Early America ...

... critique early America empiricism periodization historiography ...

... This introduction makes an argument for the vitality of critique and theory for Early American Studies and the value of the archive and texts from Early America for critically engaging the present. It demonstrates the specific contributions to historical thinking that derive from critique...

... be understood through the theories of Georges Bataille, whose conceptualization of early America was inflected by myths of violent sacrifice. US-Mexico War periodization critical bibliography violence Georges Bataille ...

... of the eighteenth century, Africans and their descendants encountered European Freemasonry in Africa, North America, and the Caribbean. The existence of lodges outside North America and prior to the organization of the African Lodge in Boston underscores the likelihood that Marrant encountered and formed ideas...

... American history. Finally, representations of violence in the US military can be understood through the theories of Georges Bataille, whose conceptualization of early America was inflected by myths of violent sacrifice. US-Mexico War periodization critical bibliography violence Georges Bataille ...

...This is My Name Pieces in this section explain how the author emerged as a writer in the world as part of movements for social justice, especially the women’s liberation movement. This section contains an early poem, “Sugar Poem,” and a well-known poem, “Child of the Americas,” alongside...