Ideology and rhetoric: constructing America

The discovery of America and its further development into a modern state and a nation are the clear instance of how ideology and rhetoric are entwined and how they can encompass widely disparate viewpoints. The essays collected in this book address the topical issues of modern American Studies: cultural difference and otherness; gender, race and ethnicity; class and power. They represent new texts and contexts, approached through the revision, reevaluation, and reconfiguration of cannons, thus accommodating the expectations of the heterodox audience. Femininity reconsidered; an ideology of passing away in contemporary world of technical development; race captured within the framework of identity and gender; the rhetoric of blackness approached through racial exploitation; American conquest ideology revealed in a mission of Manifest Destiny; the 20th century assimilation rhetoric in the relations between Native Americans and the US federal government; the conservative ideology and apologetic rhetoric of the Antebellum South; the critique of the 21st century American legal system; the evolution of the presidential rhetoric which today addresses a large heterogeneous audience â" all these topics impose a transnational interpretation of American culture which developed as a result of the cross-cultural transformation of European culture/cultures, moulded on American soil to finally become a unique reformulation of the very idea of America itself.

Pt. I. Poetry, drama, and prose : femininity revisited, death reconsidered -- pt. II. African American studies : the rhetoric of blackness -- pt. III. Contexts for American ethnic writing and minority discourses -- pt. IV. Native Americans : historical perceptions, modern perspectives -- pt. V. Reassessments of American history, reevaluations of American modernity -- pt. VI. Twentieth-century American political rhetoric and public discourse -- pt. VII. Cultural politics and American realities.