ISBN : 9780190460983
On Sympathetic Grounds lays out sympathy's vital place in shaping North America. Naomi Greyser intersperses theoretical reflection on the affective production of space with analysis of vales of tears, heart-rending oratory, and emplotment of narrative and land in work by Sojourner Truth, Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, Nathaniel Hawthorne and others.
Introduction; Chapter 1: A Paper Trail of Tears: Sentimental Sovereignty, Indian Removal and Staking Claims on North America; Chapter 2: The Ethical Bind of Sentimentalism:Rhetorical Intimacy in the Public Sphere and the Many Narratives of Sojourner Truth ; Chapter 3: Between Intimacy and Distance, a Neutral Territory: Sentimentalism, Writer's Block and Untouchable Masculinity in The Scarlet Letter ; Chapter 4: Plotting Maidens and Traitors: Sympathy, Displacement and Survivance in the New Southwest; Chapter 5: Do I Not All Thy Sorrows Heed, And Bear Thee on My Heart? Harriet E. Wilson and the Unsympathetic Materialism of White Northern Domesticity; Epilogue