Reading Between the Lines: Ambiguity in North American Literature - Einzelansicht

We are taught to read books for what they say, but what if we read them for what they do not say? Contradictions, gaps, questions asked and never answered, absences, and ‘left-unsaids’ are as central a part of a text’s poetics and politics as its plot. Why does a word seem to mean one thing and its opposite? Why does the text circle around one concept without ever openly addressing it? Why is the author contradicting her/himself? Why am I sure this text is about race, although nothing race-related is ever mentioned?

This seminar will engage textual ambiguities and interrogate their meaning within the logic of a text and its historical context. We will work with the hypothesis that textual ambiguities such as the ones listed above are more than banal blunders: they allow precious insights into cultural struggles with specific concepts. The lack of a discourse or a language to express uncomfortable ideas manifests itself in uncertain – or ambiguous – textualities. The seminar will start with early modern texts such as captivity narratives from the Americas and Africa (Mary Rowlandson and Maria Martin), continue on to the 19^th century (Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Washington Cable, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson), touch upon the 20^th century (Robert Frost), and end with ambiguating strategies in recent texts from the first decades of the 21^st century. The ultimate goal of our seminar will be to theorize ambiguity as full-fledged a literary device.