Rejection and Disaffiliation in Twenty-First Century American Immigration Narratives

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

   PDF

2. Introduction: Opportunities for Redefinition

   • Katie Daily

   Pages 1-11

3. Rejecting America

   • Katie Daily

   Pages 13-39

4. Detaining Our Own

   • Katie Daily

   Pages 41-66

5. Helpless Helpers

   • Katie Daily

   Pages 67-100

6. Moral Exhaustion

   • Katie Daily

   Pages 101-125

7. Epilogue: Hammers and Walls

   • Katie Daily

   Pages 127-133

8. Back Matter

   Pages 135-141

   PDF

Rejection and Disaffiliation in Twenty-First Century American Immigration Narratives examines changing attitudes about national sovereignty and affiliation. Katie Daily delinks twenty-first century American immigration narratives from 9/11, examining genre alterations within a scope of literary analysis that is wider than what “post-9/11” allows. What emerges is an understanding of the speed at which the rhetoric and aims of many twenty-first century immigration narratives significantly depart from the traditions established post-1900.  Daily investigates a recent trend in which novelists and filmmakers question what it means to be an immigrant in contemporary America and explores how these “disaffiliation” narratives challenge some of the most fundamental traditions in American literature and society.

 

• national sovereignty
• national affiliation
• national identity
• American identity
• post-9/11 literature
• American immigration narratives
• American studies
• Edwidge Danticat
• Mohsin Hamid
• Art Spiegelman
• Tom McCarthy
• Gary Shteyngart
• immigration narratives in film
• immigrant stories

“This timely, authoritative study traces both the continuities and the sharp breaks with past tradition that shape our accounts of becoming —and not becoming —an American in the twenty-first century.  A vital subject, treated with literary-historical depth and nuance.” (Carlo Rotella, Director of American Studies, Boston College, USA, and author of Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories, 2012)

“This book provides an important intervention into our understanding of twenty-first century U.S. centered immigration narratives. The readings of particular texts are insightful, convincing, informative, and engaged with contemporary scholarship. Impressive in its scope and ambitious in its range, this book has the potential to add much to our collective understanding of contemporary American fiction and cultural understandings of immigration, mobility, and belonging.” (Duncan Faherty, Associate Professor of English and American Studies, Queens College and The GraduateCenter, CUNY, USA)

“How have immigrant narratives changed as we approach the present, and as 9/11 in particular brought worries about surveillance, border enforcement, and race into sharper focus? Katie Daily argues that these narratives are no longer focused on arrival but also departure, a leave-taking from this country as a reaction against its lack of hospitality to the stranger. Each chapter of Rejection and Disaffiliation moves expertly and systematically through the dynamics of this phenomenon, carefully selecting literary examples to read closely even while maintaining a sense of how they help illuminate the larger question she's addressing. In the process, this book yields brilliant insights into the ways in which America is made, and remade, in contemporary literature to reflect not only the concerns of the times but to act as a site of struggle where competing ideas about nation, race, and mobility are pitted against each other.” (Min Hyoung Song, Director of Asian American Studies, Boston College, USA, and author of The Children of 1965, 2013)

“Balancing evocative close readings of a wide range of contemporary literary texts with convincing social and historical analyses of many of 21st century America's most crucial issues, Dr. Daily's book has something to offer every student, every fellow scholar, and every American. Books like this can help us understand, empathize, and move closer toward that elusive but inspiring more perfect union.” (Ben Railton, Professor of English and American Studies, Fitchburg State University, USA)

• United States Military Academy, West Point, USA

  Katie Daily

Katie Daily is Assistant Professor of English, at United States Military Academy at West Point, USA. She is the recipient of both teaching and publishing awards for her work as a professor and scholar.

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