LEADER 03875cam a2200409Ia 4500001 77072 005 20240621173204.0 008 020806t19991999xx rb 000 0 eng d 035 (OCoLC)ocm50304845 035 77072 049 LHMA 040 EZS |beng |erda |cEZS |dLHM 090 PN98.H57 |bR53 1999 100 1 Rich, Elizabeth Mary. 245 10 After the fact : |bauthority and the historical document in recent literature / |cby Elizabeth Mary Rich. 264 1 [Place of publication not identified] : |b[publisher not identified], |c[1999] 264 4 |c©1999 300 iii unnumbered pages, 408 pages 336 text |btxt |2rdacontent 337 unmediated |bn |2rdamedia 338 volume |bnc |2rdacarrier 502 Thesis (Ph. D.)--Duquesne University, 1999. 504 Includes bibliographical references (pages 390-408). 520 This study examines literary texts in light of the problem of representation as recently understood by writers, scholars, and critics who question the distinction between "fact" and "fiction." Though all historical accounts select, arrange and make value judgements on information, scholars such as Hayden White and Linda Hutcheon note that historiography's conventions often mask this process, generating carefully crafted narratives that assume complete authority. Moreover, this selection process involves unconscious and conscious choices that exclude disempowered groups. To resolve this problem, the primary literary texts addressed in this study incorporate historical documents and conflicting, incomplete accounts of events to reveal at once neglected versions of history and the processes that work to construct historiographies. These literary texts highlight the influence of cultural and political contexts on any attempt to register the past, demonstrating that writing history is as much an engagement with present, political conditions as it is a matter of recording past events. The six texts in this study recover official and neglected documents to view history from marginal perspectives. Section I pairs D. M. Thomas's The White Hotel with Toni Morrison's Beloved to explore the writers' reconsideration of eye-witness accounts, specifically the Holocaust survivor narrative and the slave narrative. Section II analyzes Susan Howe's Singularities , which rewrites the Indian captivity narrative, and Hannah Weiner's Spoke, which revises the 1868 Black Hills treaty, to focus on the ways that popular and official texts promoted the colonial imaginary and functioned to justify colonial expansion. And, finally, section III focuses on Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace and Robert Coover's The Public Burning, which critique the press's authority by questioning its claim to objectivity. As these primary texts recover lost histories, their representations refuse cohesive forms in favor of unresolved versions of events. These texts, moreover, highlight the unstable and hybrid nature of the historical document and offer a variety of ways to access the cultural conditions that produced the documents without claiming absolute access to the events themselves. 530 Electronic version(s) |bavailable internally at USHMM. 533 Photocopy. |bAnn Arbor, Mich. : |cUMI, |d2002. |e23 cm. 590 Dissertations and Theses 591 Record updated by Marcive processing 21 June 2024 650 0 Historical criticism (Literature) 650 0 Literature and history. 650 0 Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in literature. 856 41 |uhttp://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=729762991&sid=5&Fmt=6&clientId=54617&RQT=309&VName=PQD |zElectronic version from ProQuest 956 41 |u http://dc.ushmm.org/library/bib77072/9938969.pdf |z Hosted by USHMM. 994 X0 |bLHM 852 0 |bstacks |hPN98.H57 |iR53 1999 852 |bwww 852 |bebook