Ghost-Watching American Modernity: Haunting, Landscape, and the Hemispheric Imagination by Maria del Pilar Blanco

This monograph argues that we should be more attentive to the ways in which modernity haunts American literature; not with outright ghosts, but with two landscapes that uncannily exist simultaneously. Blanco makes a point of noting that her argument is not a generic one: often these hauntings transcend the genres of the gothic (in US literature) and the magically real (in Latin American literature). Blanco starts with a chapter on the hemispheric imaginary of haunting, before moving into three chapters that read specific scenarios: desert hauntings, urban hauntings, and transnational hauntings. She stakes a position as a close reader of texts (and thus, less interested in placing them in their historical contexts). The readings were not bad, but I found the theory of haunting more useful.

Toussaint Louveture and the American Civil War: The Promise and Peril of a Second Haitian Revolution by Matthew Clavin

This book provides a hemispheric perspective on the US Civil War by showing how Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution were part of the dialogue and the public consciousness in the years leading up to and during the Civil War. Although these figures are shadowy to most American citizens now, Clavin shows how both abolitionists and staunch supporters of slavery invoked and manipulated the memory of the general and the revolution in order to win public support for their positions. This book was very persuasive.

Haiti, Hegel, and Universal History by Susan Buck-Morss

This book contends that Hegel's ideas about the relationship between masters and slaves is not rooted in ancient philosophy, but in his own observations of the unfolding Haitian Revolution. Buck-Morss is interested in the connections between freemasonry and the Haitian Revolution as well. I found her arguments fairly convincing, especially in lining up Hegel's reading and newspaper coverage of the Haitian Revolution.

The Borderlands of Culture: Américo Paredes and the Transnational Imaginary by Ramón Saldívar

This book uses the works of Américo Paredes as a test case to illustrate a transnational imaginary which creates a Greater Mexico on the North American continent. The first two chapters establish the theory of transculturation on which the book relies and give a history of Paredes in his own words. The following chapters, with more and less success, read Paredes's works in the larger cultural context to show this transnational imaginary at work. There were definitely points where I found myself wanting more attentive close readings, but I think this book is constructed in a very smart manner.

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé

In this book Tituba tells her own story, which deconstructs the book's title--Salem's only a part of the tale, and not the most important part in Tituba's own mind. The story has a sly sense of humor--it introduces anachronistic concepts like feminism and racism and even brings Hester Prynne to a Salem Jail cell at the same time as Tituba. Although I found the book's tone disconcerting at first, I grew to like it more and more as I thought about it. It's definitely a book you have to accept on its own terms.

The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles by Captain John Smith

In this document John Smith gathers and edits a collection of accounts of English experiences in North America. I'm interested in this book's generic mixture: it's part economic treatise (how expensive would it be to fit out an expedition/colony and fish in North America), part history (of Roanoke, Jamestown, Plymouth, and Bermuda, no less), and part natural history/ethnography. I think this mixture is related to the fact that the colonial experience is pretty new to the British at this point, and they're still making sense of how to understand it. There's also a great vocabulary list giving an account of native words. Many are related to warfare and to the presence of the English. I'm also interested in how much of this treatise Smith hasn't authored himself (there's a lot of first-hand accounts from other people to fill out areas where Smith wasn't) and in the presence of the Pocahontas legend (notably absent from Smith's earlier work about Virginia). All in all, a fascinating read.

Seized: A Sea Captain's Adventures Battling Scoundrels and Pirates While Recovering Stolen Ships in the World's Most Troubled Waters by Max Hardberger

I received this book via Sneak Peek, a branch of Barnes and Noble's First Look program. I have put the rest of my review behind a cut as we're still discussing the book on the Barnes and Noble boards.

The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca by Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca

This account of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca's journey from the coast of Florida through Texas to what is now the US Southwest blends a variety of genres. In part, it's an official relation to the king, part of Cabeza de Vaca's attempt to get the king to give him permission to keep exploring in the New World. As such, there's a fair amount of natural history (about the geography and the plants and animals that fill the land) and ethnography (about the people Cabeza de Vaca encounters). At times, Cabeza de Vaca's called upon to practice medicine, which usually consists of him conforming to indigenous expectations about ceremonial gestures and ritual actions (there's some cutting and cauterizing going on) while praying to the Catholic god to cure the people. Once he actually performs surgery to remove an old arrow. Cabeza de Vaca also uses his religious faith as a means of understanding his experience and as a possible motivation for getting the Spaniards to spend more time and energy settling the region. At the end of his captivity, when Cabeza de Vaca encounters Spaniards again, he seems estranged from them as well as from the native peoples with whom he's been living.

The Broken Spears: The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico by Miguel León-Portilla

This book anthologizes Nahautl writings about the conquest of Mexico in order to create a smooth narrative telling the events from an indigenous point of view. It's important to remember that this book has been produced through multiple layers of mediation: most of the accounts in this book were written in Nahautl and then translated into Spanish and from there into English. Furthermore, the book's translator freely admits to wanting a smooth read, so much so that paragraphs have been dropped and words changed. Furthermore, the book is anthologized, so rather than following one account, many accounts are excerpted. I would have particularly liked to get more of the poetry (not to mention some explanation of how Nahautl poetry works: is it rhymed? does it use alliteration? what about meter?).

While most of the book is clearly a native account (both through the clarity of the names that Spaniards seemed to have trouble getting right in their own accounts and in the perspective), there are moments when Spanish intervention is clear (for example, most of these accounts are written in alphabetical Nahautl, taught to the natives by Spanish priests, and at times there are references to Spanish places and the Catholic faith in ways that strike me as unusual for natives). The Aztecs don't hestitate in admitting that they first saw the Spaniards as Gods (specifically Cortés was supposed to be Queztalcoatl), but they also quickly see how the Spaniards are debased by their obession with finding gold.

I was also interested in moments of translation within the texts: most of the time, the texts just record discussions, but sometimes they explicitly show the presence of La Malinche (Doña Marina) who translated between Nahautl and Mayan, and a Spaniard who translated between Mayan and Spanish. Often these accounts portray La Malinche as siding with the Spaniards, although they don't necessarily hold this allegiance against her.

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies by Bartolomé de Las Casas

This book contains Las Casas's plea to the Spanish throne that they investigate and curtail the cruelties practiced by Spanish citizens on the native peoples of the Americas. Organized geographically first, and then chronologically, the book uses several rhetorical strategies to emphasize the mistakes, cruelties, and horrors the Spaniards have committed in the New World. The book at times details individual actions but denies its ability to recount all the horrors--it will either fall silent or say this example is but one of many. There's a point where Las Casas shows some of the natives' willingness to embrace the Christian religion when it isn't accompanied by violence and cruelty. Las Casas seems to attack these bad actions not only because they show the Spaniards to be more interested in gold than God (and thus leave Spain liable to divine retribution), but also because they are inhumane actions. At times, the book seemed a bit repetitive, but this repetition only drove home the horror of the conquest of the New World.

Transamerican Literary Relations and the Nineteenth-Century Public Sphere by Anna Brickhouse

In this book, Anna Brickhouse re-reads 19th-century American literature as being in significant dialogue with the rest of the hemisphere, even as politically, the US remains in a disengaged and antagonistic stance towards its neighbors. Brickhouse does an excellent job recuperating several texts and authors (including an American poet), and makes some intelligent guesses at identifying an anonymous author. I appreciated both the book's scope and its methodology. I was particularly intrigued by the chapter that sets The Last of the Mohicans against the anonymous Jicoténcal, and I am impressed by her incorporation of French and Spanish sources.