Trafficking Subjects ─ the Politics Of Mobility In Nineteenth-Century America

Simpson (English, U. of Alberta, Canada) begins with a reading of the Confessions of Nat Turner and explores the legal discourse of human movement under the institution of slavery. Shifting to fictional discourses of Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville, he discusses the commercial power of travel narratives in the emergent capitalist publishing industry. Fictional and biographical fugitive narratives are then used to consider the implications of movement and secrecy. Finally, Stephen Crane's Mexican travel dispatches and Jack London's tramp writings and novel Martin Eden help the author articulate a theory of "disciplinary pace" concerned with technologies of motion control and the relationship between motion and stasis. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)