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Beyond Emancipation

Beyond Emancipation

By Gerrity, Sean

Published by State University of New York Press

English 212 pages 2025
Estimated reading time: 3 h 53 min
PDF

About this book

Explores how African American literary representations of maroons in the decade leading up to the Civil War complicate conventional narratives and geographies of slavery and freedom in the United States. Beyond Emancipation revisits classic works of nineteenth-century American literature, especially by Black writers, to uncover a hidden history of maroons-enslaved people who ran away but remained hidden in the South. Sean Gerrity argues that literary depictions of "small acts" of marronage reveal an expanded sense of what freedom might look like and where and when it might occur. While taking care not to romanticize historical realities, Gerrity vividly shows how works by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs, and Martin Delany gesture toward possibilities for Black freedom-making beyond legal emancipation, liberalism, and the white abolitionist literary tradition passed down from Harriet Beecher Stowe. While Beyond Emancipation focuses on texts produced during the brief period between the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Civil War, the book's range of reference and implications are broad, unsettling still dominant ideas and engaging pressing questions in literary criticism, history, geography, and Black studies.

Availability

Beyond Emancipation is available as PDF at 9 online bookshops. Bookshops carrying it include Bajalibros Argentina, Bajalibros Latam, Bookshop Uruguay.

Language
English
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Frequently asked questions

In what formats is Beyond Emancipation available?
Beyond Emancipation is available as PDF at 9 online bookshops.
Where can I buy Beyond Emancipation?
You can buy Beyond Emancipation at Bajalibros Argentina, Bajalibros Latam, Bookshop Uruguay. Compare every option in the list on this page.
How long does it take to read Beyond Emancipation?
At an average reading pace, Beyond Emancipation takes about 3 h 53 min to read (212 pages).

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