Modernity and Autobiography in Nineteenth-Century America

James E. Dobson is Lecturer at Dartmouth College where he conducts research on American literature, autobiography, and the digital humanities. He is the author of essays on Mark Twain, Lucy Larcom, Shirley Jackson, and Ambrose Bierce and several addressing computational methods and text mining.

• Introduction: The American Modernity Crisis and Technology.- Chapter One: Modernity and the Dialectic of Detachment.- Chapter Two: Henry James’ Failed Homecoming.- Chapter Three: Theodore Dreiser, Temporary Homes, and the Compensatory “Commemorative State".- Chapter Four: The Telephonic Self: Non-Systemic Systems and Autobiographical Self-Representation.