Cathy Davidson, Revolution and the Word
“Introduction to Expanded edition”:
a. My introductory comments:
i. The intro is somewhat of a behemoth and a manifesto
ii. I don’t expect you to have processed all parts of it or be able to
apply all parts of it to your readings
iii. Much of what Davidson says in this intro will become much
clearer once you have read the rest of her original book, to which
this intro, of course, responds
iv. But: I think this book lends itself to collectively—as a class—
working through a sustained critical work, trying to understand its
claims, its assumptions, its consequences, its applications, and its
shortcomings
v. Your stance toward this and other scholarly works/criticism:
exploring its usefulness, discovering how it can expand our
thinking, while remaining critical of both its assumptions and
results
1. what’s nice here: Davidson allowed to take a critical stance
toward her own, earlier work!
vi. Also: her recurring reference to political and social questions today
(and their connectedness to the post-revolutionary period) may be
both intriguing and confusing or unsettling
=> important: I want to leave it up to you (and hope to
receive cues from you) in how much you are interested in
discussing those connections/similarities in class
b. Collect on the board (key terms, page numbers) student notes on
questions/topics/themes that may guide our reading of the novels
c. Discuss meanings, arguments, applications, backgrounds of Davidson’s
points (use concrete passages in the intro!)
B) My Questions/Discussion Points: Cathy Davidson, “Introduction to the
Expanded Edition.”
1. Discuss the Sub-sections:
a. “New Genre, New Nation” (3-13)
b. “The United States as a Postcolonial Nation” (13-24)
c. “A Paradigm Shift: Subversion” (24-28)
d. “Gender and Sexuality Studies” (29-38)
e. “Race Studies” (38-41)
f. “History of the Book” (41-45)
g. “What Is a Field” [Discipline formation; canon] (45-55)
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h. “New Genre, New Nation” (3-13)
i. General question: How can the parallelism of “new nation” and
“new genre” affect our readings?
ii. How, according to Davidson, do novels and the official founding
documents of the early Republic—esp. the US Constitution—differ
with regard to their relationship to the social and political issues of
the period? (see p. 5ff)
iii. Why her interest in the Constitution?
iv. Discuss: “The novel is the paradigmatic democratic form.” [p. 6]
v. Conflict as central element of these novels (and the period/the new
nation) => individual conflict as metonym for national conflict (p.
6)
1. desire
2. motive
3. agency
4. principles
vi. sub-genres:
1. seduction
2. picaresque
3. gothic
vii. political orientation:
1. important: no novel can probably be placed in one political
camp; novels/novelists can be conservative/affirmative on
one issue and challenging/liberal on another issue
viii. Davidson’s central interest:
1. range of characters
2. variety of experience
3. diversity of expression
ix. Discuss: “Early American novels . . . walked on the dark side of
the Enlightenment . . .”
1. => Werther!
x. Reader responses and identity (p. 11)
1. How do different readers respond to same class allegories
(for instance)?
xi. Question of “shared national culture” (p. 11)
1. Shared by whom?
2. Shared in what way?
xii. Public sphere vs. Private sphere (p. 12)
1. “gender assumptions embedded in discussions of the public
sphere”
xiii. Dissent (p. 12)
1. How do novels allegorize dissent, make it imaginary, to
avoid legal persecution? (=> Alien and Sedition Acts!)
2. How do early American novels present a heterogeneous
version of the new Republic?
2.
a. “The United States as a Postcolonial Nation” (13-24)
i. General Question: What are the pay-offs for applying postcolonial theory to early American nation, including its novels?
1. use example of McCollough’s John Adams
a. how historians pass over conflict when lionizing
founding fathers
b. Why it is important to remember discord in the
world of the founding fathers?
ii. Foundational discourse and the novel:
1. “America’s foundational fictions are . . . antifoundational.”
(p. 21)
2.
b. “A Paradigm Shift: Subversion” (24-28)
i. Important: Why and how has she changed her mind about the
meaning and use of “subversion”?
ii. What is the role of “oppositionality” within a culture?
1. more nuanced analysis of power and power relations
2. opposition can never be outside of culture
3. But: Davidson still believes in the “affective role” of
subversion and opposition
a. Quote: “There is a power to resistance that I am not
prepared to give away.”
c. “Gender and Sexuality Studies” (29-38)
i. Central: role of women in the creation of the nation and of the
early American novel
1. What does it mean that women have a larger share in
creating, starring in, and consuming novels?
ii. Complicating traditional gender bifurcations (e.g. separate spheres
model; public and private sphere)
1. re-reading seemingly gendered conventions of the
sentimental novel:
a. Question: How to read the stereo-typical death of
the heroines in child-birth?
i. Davidson: a pro forma ending that allows a
wider range of possibilities (including
female sexual desire to be played out within
the novel)
2. Question of Agency: How bleak was the situation for
women in the early Republic?
3. Attention to realms of female homo-sociability!
4.
d. “Race Studies” (38-41)
i. unresolved paradoxes (p. 39)
ii. How does the compromise of the Constitution affect American
culture?
e. “History of the Book” (41-45)
i. Quote: how to “comprehend the material and social factors
influencing how books are written, circulated (sometimes in
manuscript), printed, distributed, and read” (42)
ii. Quote: “Reading is both a private and a public act.” (43)
iii. Role of novel reading in the creation of the American polis (44)
f. “What Is a Field” [Discipline formation; canon] (45-55)
3. How does Davidson revise her original argument/theory/methodology in this
expanded edition?
4. [Last question] How would you respond to potential rebuking of Davidson’s
argument as “anti-American” or “typical liberal America-hating” or “unpatriotic”?