The Lives of Frederick Douglass

FAIN: FA-56388-12

Robert S. Levine
University of Maryland, College Park (College Park, MD 20742-5141)

Ranging from the 1840s to the present day, my book will provide a literary and cultural history of the lives and afterlives of Frederick Douglass. Unlike the typical biography, the book will be a "meta-biography" of sorts--a study of how U.S. culture has conceived, or invented, what I am terming the "lives" of Douglass. Douglass wrote three very different versions of his life (1845; 1855; 1881, rev. 1892). In this respect, Douglass himself offers us a warrant for thinking about his various "lives." From beginning to end, the book will thus also pay close attention to Douglass's canny acts of self-representation, whether in autobiographies, lectures and essays, or photographs. Douglass was a contradictory, complex, and performative figure who ultimately baffles efforts to reduce his life to a single story. In short, the book examines Douglass both in his own time and beyond, with the hope of offering new perspectives on Douglass and racial representativeness in the United States.

Associated Products

"Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War" (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: "Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Civil War"
Abstract: A discussion of how Douglass's autobiographical writings on Lincoln over a thirty-year period cast new light on the Douglass-Lincoln relationship.
Author: Robert Levine
Date: 10/23/2013
Location: Institute for Advanced Study, Texas A&M

"The Lives of Frederick Douglass" (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: "The Lives of Frederick Douglass"
Abstract: An overview of the project, focusing on a cultural history of Douglass's _Narrative_, which was out of print for over 100 years.
Author: Robert Levine
Date: 09/23/2013
Location: Department of English, Texas A&M

“Frederick Douglass and Thomas Auld: Reconsidering the Reunion Narrative.” (Article)
Title: “Frederick Douglass and Thomas Auld: Reconsidering the Reunion Narrative.”
Author: Robert Levine
Abstract: A study of how Douglass represented his 1877 meeting with his former master, Thomas Auld.
Year: 2014
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of African American History

"The Lives of Frederick Douglass" (Book)
Title: "The Lives of Frederick Douglass"
Author: Robert Levine
Abstract: Frederick Douglass’s fluid, changeable sense of his own life story is reflected in the many conflicting accounts he gave of key events and relationships during his journey from slavery to freedom. Nevertheless, when these differing self-presentations are put side by side and consideration is given individually to their rhetorical strategies and historical moment, what emerges is a fascinating collage of Robert S. Levine’s elusive subject. The Lives of Frederick Douglass is revisionist biography at its best, offering new perspectives on Douglass the social reformer, orator, and writer. Out of print for a hundred years when it was reissued in 1960, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) has since become part of the canon of American literature and the primary lens through which scholars see Douglass’s life and work. Levine argues that the disproportionate attention paid to the Narrative has distorted Douglass’s larger autobiographical project. The Lives of Frederick Douglass focuses on a wide range of writings from the 1840s to the 1890s, particularly the neglected Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, 1892), revised and expanded only three years before Douglass’s death. Levine provides fresh insights into Douglass’s relationships with John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, and his former slave master Thomas Auld, and highlights Douglass’s evolving positions on race, violence, and nation. Levine’s portrait reveals that Douglass could be every bit as pragmatic as Lincoln?of whom he was sometimes fiercely critical?when it came to promoting his own work and goals.
Year: 2014
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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