Universes without us : posthuman cosmologies in American literature /

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a wide variety of American writers proposed the existence of energies connecting human beings to cosmic processes. From varying points of view, scientific, philosophical, religious and literary, they suggested that such energies would eventually r...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Taylor, Matthew A., 1978-
Format:	Book
Language:	English
Published:	Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2013]
Subjects:	Cosmology in literature. American literature > 19th century > History and criticism. American literature > 20th century > History and criticism. Poe, Edgar Allan, > 1809-1849 > Criticism and interpretation. Adams, Henry, > 1838-1918 > Criticism and interpretation. Chesnutt, Charles W. > (Charles Waddell), > 1858-1932 > Criticism and interpretation. Hurston, Zora Neale > Criticism and interpretation. Humanity in literature. Human beings in literature. Self in literature. Order (Philosophy) in literature. LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General. PHILOSOPHY / General. LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory.

Table of Contents:

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Immortal Post-Mortems
1. Edgar Allan Poe's Meta/Physics
2. Henry Adams's Half-Life: The Science of Autobiography
3. "By an Act of Self-Creation": On Becoming Human in America
4. Hoodoo You Think You Are?: Self-Conjuration in Chesnutt's The Conjure Woman
5. "It Might Be the Death of You": Hurston's Voodoo Ethnography
Coda: "The Cosmo-Political Party"
Notes
Index.