The Spy in Early America: The Emergence of a Genre
Weir, Alison Marie
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/81497
Description
Title
The Spy in Early America: The Emergence of a Genre
Author(s)
Weir, Alison Marie
Issue Date
1998
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Emily Stipes Watts
Department of Study
English
Discipline
English
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
American Studies
Language
eng
Abstract
"The theory of most analyses of ""spy fiction"" presumes that it emerged as a colonizing literature of the waning days of the British empire. This study, reading spy literature as a much earlier genre, examines American spy fiction as a genre which is both postcolonial and colonizing, reflecting the United States' quirky position as a former colony which began colonizing others even before it won its independence. Anxieties regarding the new social mobility, the freedom of the individual within society, and the increasing centralization of the government are among the many issues American spy fiction addressed through the liminal and paradoxical figure of the heroic spy."
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