SOURCE: “The Aesthetic of Dispossession: Washington Irving and Ideologies of (De)Colonization in the Early Republic,” American Literary History, Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer, 1996, pp. 205-31.

In the following essay, Murray discusses early American views on identity and nationality through an analysis of the works of Irving and William Apess.

We see that recognition of your alienation leads many of you to be empowered into the remarking of your culture, while we are paralyzed into a state of displacement with no place to go.

María C. Lugones to Elizabeth V. Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘The Woman's Voice.’”

Insisting on the different positions of white women and women of color within society and within feminism, María Lugones points out in her dialogue with Elizabeth Spelman that white women's growing awareness of their disempowerment has in fact produced...