The English Department’s Nineteenth Century Group hosts its first event of the year, a brown-bag presentation by Associate Professor Jesse Alemán, “(Re)-Inventing American Literature in the Age of the Americas,” on Monday, Oct. 12, noon-1 p.m. at the Student Union Building, Sandia room.
The talk looks at the self-conscious construction of American literature in the 19th century as a vexed double mediation that on the one hand called for a new national literature, but on the other also imagined a shared hemispheric history with the rest of the Americas. This double bind, which perhaps forces us to distinguish between U.S. literature and American literature, also speaks to more recent debates about finding a common literature of the Americas.
Alemán teaches courses in 19th century American and Chicano/a literatures. His scholarship bridges the gap between both fields by focusing on the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-48) as a formative moment for Anglo and Mexican American literary and cultural identities. Alemán has also participated in the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage project. His other teaching interests include theories of the novel, Chicano/a literary history, and race, class and gender in American literature.