Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Early American Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Early American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I How to Read (in) Early America
- 1 How to Read Things That Weren’t Written Down in Early America
- 2 How to Read the Natural World
- 3 How to Read Early American Poetry
- 4 How to Read Gender in Early America
- 5 How to Read an Early American Novel
- 6 How to Read Democracy in the Early United States
- Part II Readings in Early America
- Part III Early American Places
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
1 - How to Read Things That Weren’t Written Down in Early America
from Part I - How to Read (in) Early America
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Early American Literature
- The Cambridge Companion to Early American Literature
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Part I How to Read (in) Early America
- 1 How to Read Things That Weren’t Written Down in Early America
- 2 How to Read the Natural World
- 3 How to Read Early American Poetry
- 4 How to Read Gender in Early America
- 5 How to Read an Early American Novel
- 6 How to Read Democracy in the Early United States
- Part II Readings in Early America
- Part III Early American Places
- Select Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Companions To …
Summary
Most communications in early colonial America were not written down. Even if, following recent scholarly trends, we understand the Western notion of “writing” broadly – as including all forms of inscribed human communication – nonverbal exchanges still carry most of our human-to-human signals. How, then, do we study early American interactions between Natives and newcomers if so much of what we must rely upon as analysts goes unspoken? This chapter describes the methodological and ethical challenges of early colonial North American historiography based on other-than-linguistic evidence in three media domains: Indigenous media of the colonial era; human relations to and movement in landscape; and the environment as an agential force.
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- The Cambridge Companion to Early American Literature , pp. 17 - 31Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021