Necro-
Related: cannibalism - macabre - necrophilia - Andy Black's Necronomicon - zombie - corpse
Necro Citizenship: Death, Eroticism, and the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth-Century United States (2001) - Russ Castronovo [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Definition
pref.
- Dead body; corpse: necrophilia.
- Death: necrobiosis.
Necronomicon linguistics
Lovecraft cites the meaning of the title as translated from the Greek language: nekros (corpse), nomos (law), eikon (image): "An image of the law of the dead". A more prosaic (but probably more correct) translation, is via conjugation of nemo (to consider): "Concerning the dead". Another etymology that has been suggested here is "Knowledge of the Dead", from Greek 'Nekrós', corpse, dead, and 'Gnomein', to know (on the apparent assumption that the G could be lost); the person so suggesting thinks this "seems to fit better with the subject treated in the book". --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon#Linguistics [Oct 2004]Necro Citizenship: Death, Eroticism, and the Public Sphere in the Nineteenth-Century United States (2001) - Russ Castronovo
Synopsis
In this text, Russ Castronovo argues that the meaning of citizenship in the United States during the 19th century was bound to - and even dependent on - death. Deploying a range of literary and cultural texts, Castronovo interrogates an American public sphere that fetishized death as a crucial point of political identification. This morbid politics idealized disembodiment over embodiment, spiritual conditions over material ones, amnesia over history, and passivity over engagement. Moving from medical engravings, seances and clairvoyant communication to Supreme Court decisions, popular literature and physiological tracts, the work explores how rituals of inclusion and belonging have generated alienation and dispossession. Castronovo contends that citizenship does violence to bodies, especially those of blacks, women and workers. "Necro ideology", he argues, supplied citizens with the means to think about slavery, economic powerlessness, or social injustice as eternal questions, beyond the scope of politics or critique. By obsessing on sleepwalkers, drowned women and other corpses, necro ideology fostered a collective demand for an abstract, even antidemocratic, sense of freedom. Examining issues involving the occult, white sexuality, ghosts and suicide in conjunction with readings of Harriet Jacobs, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frances Harper, the text seeks to demonstrate why Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" has resonated so strongly in the American imagination.
From the Publisher
“Liberty and death? Citizenship and necrophilia? The conjunction ‘and’ is shocking and is meant to shock. Russ Castronovo sees American political life as the burial ground of many corpses, literal as well as metaphoric. With ruthless determination he digs these up, examines their tell-tale remains, and, in the process, offers a trenchant critique of some consequences of American democracy.”—Wai Chee Dimock, author of Residues of Justice: Literature, Law, Philosophy
Book Description
In Necro Citizenship Russ Castronovo argues that the meaning of citizenship in the United States during the nineteenth century was bound to—and even dependent on—death. Deploying an impressive range of literary and cultural texts, Castronovo interrogates an American public sphere that fetishized death as a crucial point of political identification. This morbid politics idealized disembodiment over embodiment, spiritual conditions over material ones, amnesia over history, and passivity over engagement.
Moving from medical engravings, séances, and clairvoyant communication to Supreme Court decisions, popular literature, and physiological tracts, Necro Citizenship explores how rituals of inclusion and belonging have generated alienation and dispossession. Castronovo contends that citizenship does violence to bodies, especially those of blacks, women, and workers. “Necro ideology,” he argues, supplied citizens with the means to think about slavery, economic powerlessness, or social injustice as eternal questions, beyond the scope of politics or critique. By obsessing on sleepwalkers, drowned women, and other corpses, necro ideology fostered a collective demand for an abstract even antidemocratic sense of freedom. Examining issues involving the occult, white sexuality, ghosts, and suicide in conjunction with readings of Harriet Jacobs, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Frances Harper, Necro Citizenship successfully demonstrates why Patrick Henry'! s “give me liberty or give me death” has resonated so strongly in the American imagination.
Those working in the fields of American studies, literature, history, and political theory will be interested in the social revelations and cultural connections found in Necro Citizenship.
Meanwhile, at Amazon
your Amazon recommendations