{"id":33117,"date":"2013-08-24T18:37:08","date_gmt":"2013-08-24T18:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=33117"},"modified":"2014-10-09T19:11:41","modified_gmt":"2014-10-09T19:11:41","slug":"imperfect-unions-staging-miscegenation-in-u-s-drama-and-fiction-fruscione-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=33117","title":{"rendered":"Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction [Fruscione review]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction [Fruscione review]<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States<\/a>
\nVolume 38, Issue 3<\/a> (September 2013)
\npages 180-182
\nDOI: 10.1093\/melus\/mlt040<\/a><\/p>\n

Joseph Fruscione<\/a><\/strong>, Adjunct Professor of Writing
\nGeorge Washington University, Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n

Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction<\/a><\/em>. Diana Rebekkah Paulin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012. 336 pages.<\/p>\n

Between the Civil War<\/a> (1861-65) and World War I<\/a> (1914-18), writes Diana Rebekkah Paulin<\/a> in Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction<\/a><\/em>, \u201cAmericans \u2026 literally could not stop writing about\u2014and talking about, and enacting\u2014the union between black and white\u201d in fiction and theater. Paulin asserts that such literary and dramatic works telescope how \u201cracialized citizenship and national identity formation \u2026 coalesced\u201d in this period (x). Positioning Imperfect Unions<\/em> within evolving critical conversations about writing, race, and nation, Paulin outlines her book\u2019s central focus and questions in the introduction:<\/p>\n

Rather than remaining hidden, this great American fear [of black-white unions] was actually paraded and spectacularized in public sites. Rather than being relegated to the realm of the invisible, black-white relations were continually staged. Why, so to speak, all the drama? Why the consistent production\u2014and from available historical evidence, the eager consumption by the masses\u2014of something that deeply unsettled so many Americans? (xii)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Paulin explores and complicates these questions by analyzing works by Dion Boucicault<\/a> (The Octoroon<\/a><\/em>, 1859), Louisa May Alcott<\/a> (\u201cM. L.\u201d and \u201cMy Contraband,\u201d 1863), Bartley Campbell<\/a> (The White Slave<\/em>, 1882), William Dean Howells<\/a> (An Imperative Duty<\/a><\/em>)…<\/p>\n

Read or purchase the review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction [Fruscione review] MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States Volume 38, Issue 3 (September 2013) pages 180-182 DOI: 10.1093\/melus\/mlt040 Joseph Fruscione, Adjunct Professor of Writing George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Imperfect Unions: Staging Miscegenation in U.S. Drama and Fiction. Diana Rebekkah Paulin. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,5,1196,8,20],"tags":[4988,4987,11106,15535,4259,14211],"class_list":["post-33117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-book-reviews","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-diana-paulin","tag-diana-r-paulin","tag-diana-rebekkah-paulin","tag-joseph-fruscione","tag-melus","tag-melus-multi-ethnic-literature-of-the-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}