American Literature and American Identity

Patrick Colm Hogan is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut, where he is on the faculty of the English Department and the Program in Cognitive Science. He is the author of over 20 books, including Literature and Emotion (2018) and American Literature and American Identity: A Cognitive Cultural Study from the Revolution through the Civil War (2020).

"Employing the findings of contemporary narratology and cognitive science to explain the psycho-social dynamics of national identity, this book analyzes how American literature since the Civil War has represented, and also intervened in, the efforts to define and salvage an American identity plagued by contradictions between its radically egalitarian core and its often brutally exclusionary dynamics that marginalize certain racial, gender, and sexual identities. In the current (post?)Trump era of rampant American nativism, systemic racism, white supremacism, and toxic masculinism, it is hard to imagine a more timely and important work of literary analysis. More generally, the conceptual tools provided by this book make it a valuable resource for understanding the varying ways in which different narrative prototypes contribute to the construction and reconstruction of any social identity." Mark Bracher, Director, Neurocognitive Research Program for the Advancement of the Humanities, Kent State University"Exhaustively researched, American Literature and American Identity is a smart and timely book that draws on cognitive and affective studies as tools for understanding the ways in which understandings of national identity are imbricated into narrative structure. In his sensitive reading of widely read literary works, Hogan demonstrates how authors promoted a vision of American identity as universal and egalitarian in spite of the nation’s glaring inequalities. This is an important book that comes at a critical time in American history, one in which America’s past sins and future hopes are falling under increased public scrutiny." Stella Setka, West Los Angeles College

• Introduction. Celebratory Nationalism, Critical Nationalism, and Disillusion: America After the Civil War Chapter One. National Identity and National EmplotmentPart One: Race (I): Native AmericaChapter Two: Love and Death: Adapting The Last of the Mohicans Chapter Three: Heroism, Sacrifice, and Ancestral Memory: N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain Chapter Four: Blood and Soil: Leslie Marmon Silko’s CeremonyPart Two: Race (II): African AmericaChapter Five: Heroic Narrative and Colonialism: Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones Chapter Six: Heroic Narrative and Black Masculinity: Leroi Jones’s Dutchman and The SlaveChapter Seven: Against Despair: Spike Lee’s Malcolm XPart Three: Sexual OrientationChapter Eight: Sexual Preference and the Purpose of a Democratic Nation: Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s HourChapter Nine: The National Community and Its Alternatives: Djuna Barnes’s NightwoodChapter Ten: Institutions and Communities: Tony Kushner’s Angels in America Part Four: Sex and GenderChapter Eleven: Sex Hierarchies and Utopia: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s HerlandChapter Twelve: Sex Hierarchies and Dystopia: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s TaleChapter Thirteen: Sex Hierarchies and the Law Today: Heidi Schreck’s What the Constitution Means to MeAfterword: A Note on Pessimism of the Intellect and Optimism of the Will