Deferring a Dream: Literary Sub-Versions of the American Columbiad

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The essays collected in this volume foreground the hegemonic and power-related aspects of some basic New World dreams: the dream of discovering a terra incognita, the dream of gaining dominion over a virgin land, the dream behind the making of the United States. The focus of the contributions is on Native American, Caribbean, African-American, Jewish American, and New Zealand texts that highlight the contrast between the reality of colonisation and exploitation, and its ideological framework; and question the rhetoric of such texts as Columbus’ Diario and Franklin’s Autobiography. Inevitably, gender issues occupy a central place in the book. The original forum for most of the papers was a workshop the editors convened at the 1992 Seville conference of the European Association for American Studies (EAAS), which was devoted in its entirety to the ‘American Columbiad’.