Oliver Scheiding – författare

Through innovative interdisciplinary methodologies and fresh avenues of inquiry, the nine essays collected in A Peculiar Mixture endeavor to transform how we understand the bewildering multiplicity and complexity that characterized the experience of German-speaking people in the middle colonies. They explore how the various cultural expressions of German speakers helped them bridge regional, religious, and denominational divides and eventually find a way to partake in America’s emerging national identity. Instead of thinking about early American culture and literature as evolving continuously as a singular entity, the contributions to this volume conceive of it as an ever-shifting and tangled “web of contact zones.” They present a society with a plurality of different native and colonial cultures interacting not only with one another but also with cultures and traditions from outside the colonies, in a “peculiar mixture” of Old World practices and New World influences. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Rosalind J. Beiler, Patrick M. Erben, Cynthia G. Falk, Marie Basile McDaniel, Philip Otterness, Liam Riordan, Matthias Schönhofer, and Marianne S. Wokeck.

Through innovative interdisciplinary methodologies and fresh avenues of inquiry, the nine essays collected in A Peculiar Mixture endeavor to transform how we understand the bewildering multiplicity and complexity that characterized the experience of German-speaking people in the middle colonies. They explore how the various cultural expressions of German speakers helped them bridge regional, religious, and denominational divides and eventually find a way to partake in America’s emerging national identity. Instead of thinking about early American culture and literature as evolving continuously as a singular entity, the contributions to this volume conceive of it as an ever-shifting and tangled “web of contact zones.” They present a society with a plurality of different native and colonial cultures interacting not only with one another but also with cultures and traditions from outside the colonies, in a “peculiar mixture” of Old World practices and New World influences. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Rosalind J. Beiler, Patrick M. Erben, Cynthia G. Falk, Marie Basile McDaniel, Philip Otterness, Liam Riordan, Matthias Schönhofer, and Marianne S. Wokeck.

Worlding America explores the circulation of short narratives in the early Americas through a combination of neglected primary materials and scholarly commentary. Building on recent reconsiderations of American literature in light of transnational and hemispheric approaches, it follows the migration of stories from various backgrounds and demonstrates how forms and themes developed in a new literary market that spanned the Atlantic world. While short narratives prior to 1800 have been largely excluded from critical discussions as well as anthologies, they give insight into the conditions of publishing and writing as well as the demand for brief, entertaining pieces that was met by a wide variety of sources, including sermons, letters, diaries, travelogues, and, eventually, magazines and newspapers. Breaking with traditional concepts of period, authorship, and genre, Worlding America groups the different types of narratives it anthologizes according to key subject areas such as "Life Writing," "Female Agency," or the "Cultures of Print." Each section is introduced by a headnote that explains relevant historical and literary developments, situating each narrative in its cultural context and providing its publication history. Suggestions for further reading will also be appreciated by scholars and students wishing to pursue research in these underrepresented forms.

Explores the intersections of print, writing, and media in early American literary cultures Print Technologies and the Emergence of American Literary Cultures traces the complex dynamics that shaped literary production in North America from pre-Columbian times through the early nineteenth century. Oliver Scheiding’s in-depth study demonstrates how literary cultures emerged not from isolated acts of authorship, but through a network of human and non-human mediators, diverse material surfaces, and intersecting media forms. By bringing into dialogue oral, aural, visual, and print practices, the book reveals how literary histories were assembled across cultural, material, and linguistic boundaries in the circum-Atlantic world. Balancing original archival recovery with theoretical insights, Scheiding situates American literature within a broad ecology of media and material practices. The book examines Indigenous writings, the circulation of texts in periodicals, and the literary work of figures such as Anne Bradstreet, Samson Occom, Phillis Wheatley, Susanna Rowson, Charles Brockden Brown, and Washington Irving. It also considers how these early practices resonate in contemporary forms of visual storytelling and collaborative texts. Offering fresh interpretations that combine literary analysis, anthropology, material culture studies, and media history, Scheiding reframes American literary history as a multilayered set of media events rather than a linear narrative of print dominance. Investigating how literature, media technologies, and material practices converge to shape cultural expression across time, Print Technologies and the Emergence of American Literary Cultures: Provides exemplary close readings that merge literary history with media theory and material analysisIntroduces the concept of “deep surfaces” as a method for reading literary cultures across material contextsPresents innovative archival recovery of overlooked Indigenous and colonial writing practicesDemonstrates the entanglement of oral, visual, and print traditions in shaping literary productionEmploys interdisciplinary approaches, drawing from anthropology, sociology, and material culture studiesExtending the field of American literary history beyond linear narratives of print dominance, Print Technologies and the Emergence of American Literary Cultures is ideal for upper-level undergraduates, graduate students, and scholars in courses such as Early American Literature, Indigenous Studies, Book History, and Print Culture Studies, fitting within English, American Studies, and Media Studies degree programs. It is also a valuable reference text for researchers in transatlantic and cultural studies.