Courtney Chatellier
New York University (New York, NY 10012-1019)
FT-270660-20
Summer Stipends
Research Programs
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[Grant products]
Totals:
$6,000 (approved)
$6,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
6/1/2020 – 7/31/2020
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American Literature and the Politics of Translation in the Age of Revolutions, 1789-1815
Revision of two chapters of a book on the influence of French
texts and ideas in the early American republic.
The first book-length study of the French and Haitian revolutions’ influence on early U.S. writers, this book examines American translations and adaptations of French literature, as well as American authors’ engagements with revolutionary ideology in the form of political commentary, literary criticism, and original novels during the period 1789-1815. Whereas many studies of early American literature have examined transatlantic exchanges between Britain and the U.S., the extensive influence of French literature through translation and other literary modes has received scant attention. I argue that to form a more complete picture of early U.S. intellectual and literary history, we must consider how the American tradition defined itself in relation to the French, particularly as the French and Haitian revolutions stirred Americans’ deepest aspirations and fears for the project of democracy and the role of literature in shaping the nation’s future.
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