{"product_id":"history-abolition-and-the-ever-present-now-in-antebellum-american-writing-9780192871435","title":"History, Abolition, and the Ever-Present Now in Antebellum American Writing","description":"\u003cem\u003eThe Ever-Present Now\u003c\/em\u003e examines the meaning and possibilities of the present and its relationship to history and historicity in a number of literary texts; specifically, the writings of several figures in antebellum US literary history, some, but not all of whom, associated with the period's romantic movement. Focusing on nineteenth-century writers who were impatient for social change, like those advocating for the immediate emancipation of slaves, as opposed to those planning for a gradual end to slavery, the book recovers some of the political force of romanticism. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThrough close readings of texts by Washington Irving, John Neal, Catharine Sedgwick, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Herman Melville, Insko argues that these writers practiced forms of literary historiography that treat the past as neither a reflection of present interests nor as an irretrievably distant 'other', but as a complex and open-ended interaction between the two. In place of a fixed and linear past, these writers imagine history as an experience rooted in a fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing present. The political, philosophical, and aesthetic disposition Insko calls 'romantic presentism' insists upon the present as the fundamental sphere of human action and experience-and hence of ethics and democratic possibility.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJeffrey Insko, \u003cem\u003e Associate Professor, Director of American Studies, Oakland University\u003c\/em\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJeffrey Insko is Associate Professor of English at Oakland University where he teaches courses in nineteenth-century US literature and culture. He is the recipient of the 2012 Oakland University Teaching Excellence Award. His essays have appeared in \u003cem\u003eAmerican Literary History, American Literature, Early American Literature\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eESQ\u003c\/em\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50390207168786,"sku":"9780192871435","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_4d93a34d-2489-4b81-bfa2-8c4f96ba75bc.jpg?v=1728942176","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/history-abolition-and-the-ever-present-now-in-antebellum-american-writing-9780192871435","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}