Civic Myths: A Law-and-Literature Approach to Citizenship

by Brook Thomas

Overview

As questions of citizenship generate new debates for this generation of Americans, Brook Thomas argues for revitalizing the role of literature in civic education. Thomas defines civic myths as compelling stories about national origin, membership, and values that are generated by conflicts within the concept of citizenship itself. Selected works of literature, he claims, work on these myths by challenging their terms at the same time that they work with them by relying on the power of narrative to produce compelling new stories.

Civic Myths consists of four case studies: Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and "the good citizen"; Edward Everett Hale's "The Man without a Country" and "the patriotic citizen"; Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and "the independent citizen"; and Maxine Hong Kingston's China Men and "the immigrant citizen." Thomas also provides analysis of the civic mythology surrounding Abraham Lincoln and the case of Ex parte Milligan. Engaging current debates about civil society, civil liberties, civil rights, and immigration, Thomas draws on the complexities of law and literature to probe the complexities of U.S. citizenship.

About the Author:
Brook Thomas, Chancellor's Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469606798
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/01/2012
Series:	Cultural Studies of the United States
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Brook Thomas, Chancellor’s Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine, has written five books, including American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract.

Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Acknowledgments     xiii
Introduction: Working on/with Civic Myths     1
The Scarlet Letter: The Good Citizen, Transgression, and Civil Society     27
"The Man without a Country": The Patriotic Citizen, Lincoln, and Civil Liberties     55
Ex parte Milligan: Civil Liberties v. Civil Rights     102
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: The Independent Citizen, Mugwumpery, and Civil Rights     125
China Men: The Immigrant Citizen, Wong Kim Ark, and Civil Talk     177
Conclusion: Keeping Discussions of U.S. Citizenship Open     215
Notes     239
Index     287

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Civic Myths provides an innovative contribution to the history of American citizenship that lies at the intersection of cultural criticism and legal studies. By deftly revealing how the social and conceptual contradictions implicated in competing visions of citizenship find their symbolic resolution in literary narrative, Thomas creates a powerful interpretive framework which should appeal to scholars and students in a variety of academic fields.” — Mark S. Weiner, Rutgers School of Law, Newark

“From one of the most respected Americanists in the field, what is dramatized here is nothing less than the contradictions lurking in the utopian dream of a 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people.' Analyzing these contradictions, Civic Myths speaks directly to our current legal and political climate. Thomas’s forceful argument is both historically salient and utterly timely.” — Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University

Editorial Reviews

“A truly interdisciplinary book as comfortable analyzing the consequences of landmark legal decisions as it is the intricacies of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. . . . [Thomas] parses legal language and its real-world political ramifications and then connects this sort of culture making to that found in literary texts. The result is exciting: not only does he demonstrate the impact such laws had on debates about citizenship, but he also suggests fresh ways of understanding texts long saturated with commentary.”—American Literature

“Embraces the possibility of the literary artist as civic referee. . . . Illuminates and complicates the various ideals of citizenship. . . [by guiding] readers through the complex legal and historical terrain in which those ideals have been revealed. . . . A demanding and productive model of scholarship, as well as an insistent call for applying that scholarship to civic practice.” — West Virginia History

From the Publisher