Document Type
Book Review
Publication Date
3-2010
Keywords
Women's life writing, Life writing
Abstract
In Owning Up: Privacy, Property, and Belonging in U.S. Women’s Life Writing, Katherine Adams sets out to explore “the consequences of imagining human existence in terms of two antagonistic and simultaneous conditions—we are owned, we are not owned— and of incessantly rehearsing the drama of passage between them” (p. 203). Adams is particularly concerned with “how such representations, and the fantasy they project of self-(non)-possession—that is, of self-possession without self-alienation—intersect with questions about democratic freedom and nationhood” (p. 203). Locating her discussion in the culturally unstable period of 1840–90, Adams moves from the antebellum context of romantic nationalism to the late nineteenth century’s vexed lament for a perceived loss of privacy.
Publication Title
The New England Quarterly
Volume
83
Issue
1
First Page
155
Last Page
158
Required Publisher's Statement
Posted Online February 19, 2010
https://doi.org/10.1162/tneq.2010.83.1.155
© 2010 by The New England Quarterly
Recommended Citation
Owning Up: Privacy, Property, and Belonging in U.S. Women's Life Writing. By Katherine Adams. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. viii, 264. $65.00.) Laura Laffrado, The New England Quarterly 2010 83:1, 155-158
Subjects - Topical (LCSH)
Autobiography--Women authors; Women authors, American--Biography--History and criticism; American prose literature--Women authors--History and criticism; American literature--Women authors--History and criticism; American literature--19th century--History and criticism; Privacy in literature; Privacy--Philosophy; Privacy--United States--History--19th century
Geographic Coverage
United States
Genre/Form
reviews (documents)
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
