White Men Write Now

Manson, Richard (2005): White Men Write Now: Deconstructed and Reconstructed Borders of Identity in Contemporary American Literature by White Men. Dissertation, LMU München: Faculty for Languages and Literatures

Abstract

Contemporary literature by white men in the United States about the identity "white man" largely focuses on two themes: destabilized structures of identity and their reinforcement. This concern with the threat to identity structures of race and gender is an old one in American literature. However, it takes on a new meaning in the present postmodern climate that challenges master narratives and their reinscription by forces which sustain them. White Men Write Now repeatedly returns to the thesis that the rise of postmodernism and postcolonialism against the backdrop of the Cold War created a contemporary era which critiques the Cold War as a master narrative. The challenge to narratives of nation and civilization brings an analogous challenge to categories of national Selfhood. It is a challenge to the social structures of difference, the borders which inscribe difference, in turn complicating concepts that attempt to transcend those borders.

• Item Type: Theses (Dissertation, LMU Munich)
• Keywords: Whiteness, masculinity, postcolonialism, contemporary American literature
• Subjects: 800 Literature > 810 American literature in English; 800 Literature
• Faculties: Faculty for Languages and Literatures
• Language: English
• Date of oral examination: 11. January 2005
• 1. Referee: Haselstein, Ulla
• Signature of the printed copy: 0001/UMC 15689