Abstract
This article places Judith Sargent Murray’s The Gleaner in the context of U. S. publishing infrastructures of the 1790 s, exploring Murray’s gender-switching literature as a media-rhetorical print experiment. It argues that The Gleaner enacts a multi-modal drag performance that both challenges and partially reconfirms the protocols of white male identity mediation in the early republic. Addressing the centrality of impersonation, self-sentimentalization, and political indignation in early American literature, the article goes on to analyze the seriality of Murray’s collection through a close reading of the first episodes of “Story of Margaretta” (a sentimental narrative embedded in The Gleaner). It concludes with a discussion of Murray’s transformation of classical notions of “fame” into a serial project of “recognition”, showing how central tenets and facets of early American liberalism (such as deliberation, competition, and the public sphere) were shaped by their techno-communicative conditions of possibility, particularly serial publication and serial circulation.
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© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Preliminary Remarks
- Introducing Serial Circulation: Print Cultures and Periodical Modernities
- Iterative Circulation in Chaucer: Medieval Contexts of Seriality
- Medieval Modes of Reading: The Circulation Culture of Late Middle English Romances from William Caxton’s Press
- “In a course of publications”: Seriality, Public Recognition, and Judith Sargent Murray’s The Gleaner (1792–1798)
- The Laughing Mrs. Churchill: Longfellow’s Kavanagh (1849) and the Earliest Anglo-American Mathematics Journals
- “Life-like Delineations of Real Life”: Illustrating Wilfred Montressor; Or, The Secret Order of the Seven, a New York City Mystery of 1846
- Circulating Superheroes in City Mystery Novels: Prefigurations of a Popular Serial Figure
- The Experiment of Condensed Fiction in the Review of Reviews
- Erasure and Seriality: The “Serial Attitude” in A Humument and Tree of Codes
- Power the Dark Lord Knows Not: The Fractal Serialities of Fanfiction
- Reviews
- Annette Kern-Stähler and Elizabeth Robertson (eds.). 2023. Literature and the Senses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xix + 544 pp., 20 illustr., $ 155.
- Martin Procházka (ed.). 2024. From Shakespeare to Autofiction: Approaches to Authorship after Barthes and Foucault. London: UCL Press, 207 pp., 10 figures, £40.00.
- Irmtraud Huber. 2023. Time and Timelessness in Victorian Poetry. Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, viii + 288 pp., £ 95.00.
- Arnaud Schmitt (ed.). 2024. Hybridity in Life Writing: Combining Text and Images. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, xii + 296 pp., 20 figures, CHF 177.00.
- Richard Müller (ed.). 2024. The Emerging Contours of the Medium: Literature and Mediality. Thinking Media. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, xvi + 501 pp., 17 figures, 4 illustrations, 4 tables, 4 diagrams, £ 90.00.
- Yvonne Reddick. 2024. Anthropocene Poetry: Place, Environment, and Planet. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, xiii + 389 pp, € 139.09.
- Ann Rea (ed.). 2024. Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionage: Spying Undercover(s). London/New York: Bloomsbury, xi + 235 pp., £ 85.00.
- Susan E. Kirtley. 2021. Typical Girls: The Rhetoric of Womanhood in Comic Strips. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 268 pp., 59 illustrations, $134.95.
- Matthew Scully. 2024. Democratic Anarchy: Aesthetics and Political Resistance in U. S. Literature. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 256 pp., 5 illustr., $ 125.00.
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Preliminary Remarks
- Introducing Serial Circulation: Print Cultures and Periodical Modernities
- Iterative Circulation in Chaucer: Medieval Contexts of Seriality
- Medieval Modes of Reading: The Circulation Culture of Late Middle English Romances from William Caxton’s Press
- “In a course of publications”: Seriality, Public Recognition, and Judith Sargent Murray’s The Gleaner (1792–1798)
- The Laughing Mrs. Churchill: Longfellow’s Kavanagh (1849) and the Earliest Anglo-American Mathematics Journals
- “Life-like Delineations of Real Life”: Illustrating Wilfred Montressor; Or, The Secret Order of the Seven, a New York City Mystery of 1846
- Circulating Superheroes in City Mystery Novels: Prefigurations of a Popular Serial Figure
- The Experiment of Condensed Fiction in the Review of Reviews
- Erasure and Seriality: The “Serial Attitude” in A Humument and Tree of Codes
- Power the Dark Lord Knows Not: The Fractal Serialities of Fanfiction
- Reviews
- Annette Kern-Stähler and Elizabeth Robertson (eds.). 2023. Literature and the Senses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xix + 544 pp., 20 illustr., $ 155.
- Martin Procházka (ed.). 2024. From Shakespeare to Autofiction: Approaches to Authorship after Barthes and Foucault. London: UCL Press, 207 pp., 10 figures, £40.00.
- Irmtraud Huber. 2023. Time and Timelessness in Victorian Poetry. Edinburgh Critical Studies in Victorian Culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, viii + 288 pp., £ 95.00.
- Arnaud Schmitt (ed.). 2024. Hybridity in Life Writing: Combining Text and Images. Palgrave Studies in Life Writing. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, xii + 296 pp., 20 figures, CHF 177.00.
- Richard Müller (ed.). 2024. The Emerging Contours of the Medium: Literature and Mediality. Thinking Media. New York, NY: Bloomsbury, xvi + 501 pp., 17 figures, 4 illustrations, 4 tables, 4 diagrams, £ 90.00.
- Yvonne Reddick. 2024. Anthropocene Poetry: Place, Environment, and Planet. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, xiii + 389 pp, € 139.09.
- Ann Rea (ed.). 2024. Sexuality and Gender in Fictions of Espionage: Spying Undercover(s). London/New York: Bloomsbury, xi + 235 pp., £ 85.00.
- Susan E. Kirtley. 2021. Typical Girls: The Rhetoric of Womanhood in Comic Strips. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 268 pp., 59 illustrations, $134.95.
- Matthew Scully. 2024. Democratic Anarchy: Aesthetics and Political Resistance in U. S. Literature. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 256 pp., 5 illustr., $ 125.00.