Open Access Edition of Race Characters: Ethnic Literature and the Figure of the American Dream by Swati Rana

FAIN: DR-284952-22

University of North Carolina Press, Inc. (Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2288)
Mark Simpson-Vos (Project Director: July 2021 to October 2023)

This project will publish the book Race Characters: Ethnic Literature and the Figure of the American Dream, written by NEH Fellow Swati Rana (NEH grant number FEL-XXXX), in an electronic open access format under a Creative Commons license, making it available for free download and distribution. The author will be paid a royalty of at least $500 upon release of the open access ebook.

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: Race Characters: Ethnic Literature and the Figure of the American Dream
Year: 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4696-594
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Author: Swati Rana
Editor: Lucas Church
Abstract: A vexed figure inhabits U.S. literature and culture: the visibly racialized immigrant who disavows minority identity and embraces the American dream. Such figures are potent and controversial, for they promise to expiate racial violence and perpetuate an exceptionalist ideal of America. Swati Rana grapples with these figures, building on studies of literary character and racial form. Rana offers a new way to view characterization through racialization that creates a fuller social reading of race. Situated in a nascent period of ethnic identification from 1900 to 1960, this book focuses on immigrant writers who do not fit neatly into a resistance-based model of ethnic literature. Writings by Paule Marshall, Ameen Rihani, Dalip Singh Saund, José Garcia Villa, and José Antonio Villarreal symbolize different aspects of the American dream, from individualism to imperialism, assimilation to upward mobility. The dynamics of characterization are also those of contestation, Rana argues. Analyzing the interrelation of persona and personhood, Race Characters presents an original method of comparison, revealing how the protagonist of the American dream is socially constrained and structurally driven.
Primary URL: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469659473/race-characters/
Primary URL Description: UNC Press Description Page
Secondary URL: https://www.amazon.com/Race-Characters-Ethnic-Literature-American-ebook/dp/B086GJY975/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=9781469659480&qid=1602008967&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
Secondary URL Description: Amazon Kindle Edition
URL 3: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/race-characters-swati-rana/1136746126?ean=9781469659480
URL 3 Description: Barnes & Noble Nook Edition
Type: Single author monograph

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: Race Characters: Ethnic Literature and the Figure of the American Dream
Year: 2020
ISBN: 9781469659480
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Author: Swati Rana
Editor: Lucas Church
Abstract: A vexed figure inhabits U.S. literature and culture: the visibly racialized immigrant who disavows minority identity and embraces the American dream. Such figures are potent and controversial, for they promise to expiate racial violence and perpetuate an exceptionalist ideal of America. Swati Rana grapples with these figures, building on studies of literary character and racial form. Rana offers a new way to view characterization through racialization that creates a fuller social reading of race. Situated in a nascent period of ethnic identification from 1900 to 1960, this book focuses on immigrant writers who do not fit neatly into a resistance-based model of ethnic literature. Writings by Paule Marshall, Ameen Rihani, Dalip Singh Saund, José Garcia Villa, and José Antonio Villarreal symbolize different aspects of the American dream, from individualism to imperialism, assimilation to upward mobility. The dynamics of characterization are also those of contestation, Rana argues. Analyzing the interrelation of persona and personhood, Race Characters presents an original method of comparison, revealing how the protagonist of the American dream is socially constrained and structurally driven.
Primary URL: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469659473/race-characters/
Primary URL Description: UNC Press
Secondary URL: https://flexpub.com/preview/race-characters
Secondary URL Description: UNC Press OA
URL 3: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5149/9781469659497_rana
URL 3 Description: JSTOR
Type: Single author monograph

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