Empire’s Proxy: American Literature and U.S. Imperialism in the Philippines

Meg Wesling

Published by New York University Press 2011

Empire’s Proxy

American Literature and U.S. Imperialism in the Philippines

Meg Wesling

Volume 1 in the series American Literatures Initiative

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9780814794760.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

In the late nineteenth century, American teachers descended on the Philippines, which had been newly purchased by the U.S. at the end of the Spanish-American War. Motivated by President McKinley’s project of “benevolent assimilation,” they established a school system that centered on English language and American literature to advance the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which was held up as justification for the U.S.’s civilizing mission and offered as a promise of moral uplift and political advancement. Meanwhile, on American soil, the field of American literature was just being developed and fundamentally, though invisibly, defined by this new, extraterritorial expansion.
Drawing on a wealth of material, including historical records, governmental documents from the War Department and the Bureau of Insular Affairs, curriculum guides, memoirs of American teachers in the Philippines, and 19th century literature, Meg Wesling not only links empire with education, but also demonstrates that the rearticulation of American literary studies through the imperial occupation in the Philippines served to actually define and strengthen the field. Empire’s Proxy boldly argues that the practical and ideological work of colonial dominance figured into the emergence of the field of American literature, and that the consolidation of a canon of American literature was intertwined with the administrative and intellectual tasks of colonial management.

Author information

WeslingMeg:

Meg Wesling is Associate Professor of Literature at the University of California, San Diego.

Reviews

Anna Brickhouse,University of Virginia:
This is a & big idea book that is likely to become a major influence in the field of American Studies. Its superbly argued thesis is both counterintuitive and perspective-altering: that American Literature came into being as a field at the turn of the century through its function as a proxy for US imperialism in the Philippines.

T. Carolan:
The parallels Wesling draws with current US/NATO rhetorics of involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan make uncomfortable but valuable reading.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction. Educated Subjects: Literary Production, Colonial Expansion, and the Pedagogical Public Sphere Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. The Alchemy of English Colonial State-Building and the Imperial Origins of American Literary Study Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
2. Empire’s Proxy Literary Study as Benevolent Discipline Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
3. Agents of Assimilation Female Authority, Male Domesticity, and the Familial Dramas of Colonial Tutelage Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
4. The Performance of Patriotism Ironic Affiliations and Literary Disruptions in Carlos Bulosan’s America Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
Conclusion. “An Empire of Letters”: Literary Tradition, National Sovereignty, and Neocolonialism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	213
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	236

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: April 11, 2011
ISBN: 9780814795415