11/5/08
Gilb 2 slides 1
11/5/08
Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts
(1996)
• “It is through the terrain of national cultu re
that the individual subject is politically f ormed
as the American citizen…”
• what forms of culture is she talking abou t?
– ico nography [visual symbols, ads, visual art]
– pe rformance [kinetic, bodily movement]
– narrative
11/5/08
what we know now about
narrative:
• Narratives, whether fictional or nonfictio nal,
textual or filmic, share certain formal
structures: time (devices for manipulating it;
histoire/récit) and voice (point of view,
existence of a narrator)
• Narratives, whether fictional or nonfictional,
textual or filmic, are forms of social relation
11/5/08
nationhood and narrative
• the “imagined community” (from Benedict
Anderson): prior to the rise of the newsp aper
in c19, there were no obvious ways to
imagine yourself simultaneously linked t o
other individuals--strangers to you--with
whom you might have something in com mon;
reading is key to rise of democracy
• critics argue for the importance of the
bildungsroman, the narrative of evolving
selfhood, to the democratic tradition
