Overview

The Ever-Present Now 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. Through 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.

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9780192871435

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Reviews

The not-to-be-missed chapter of the volume is its model Introduction, which offers an impressively sizeable yet remarkably efficient survey of existing scholarship. The scholar is able to say something new because he pays careful attention to what has already been said, in a full-throated, interdisciplinary fashion. History, Abolition, and the Ever-Present Now is a strong, clear, and impressive example of how real scholarship gets done. * Jordan Alexander Stein, Modern Language Review * A bracing coda, #STAYWOKE, clarifies the book's political investment in interpreting past events and texts in light of present needs...he makes a strong argument that we cannot avoid encountering the past through today's politics. * Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies * Scholars will value Insko's well-researched insights, and students will appreciate his knack for explaining complex ideas clearly and succinctly. * J.W. Miller, CHOICE *

"The not-to-be-missed chapter of the volume is its model Introduction, which offers an impressively sizeable yet remarkably efficient survey of existing scholarship. The scholar is able to say something new because he pays careful attention to what has already been said, in a full-throated, interdisciplinary fashion. History, Abolition, and the Ever-Present Now is a strong, clear, and impressive example of how real scholarship gets done. * Jordan Alexander Stein, Modern Language Review * A bracing coda, ""#STAYWOKE,"" clarifies the book's political investment in interpreting past events and texts in light of present needs...he makes a strong argument that we cannot avoid encountering the past through today's politics. * Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies * Scholars will value Insko's well-researched insights, and students will appreciate his knack for explaining complex ideas clearly and succinctly. * J.W. Miller, CHOICE *"

Author Information

Jeffrey 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 American Literary History, American Literature, Early American Literature, and ESQ.

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