Civil Ghosts: Transatlantic (Il)literacy and Personhood

This dissertation aims to illuminate divergent ideologies of literacy and personhood in the United States and England, utilizing literary and non-literary texts from the nineteenth century to shed light on the historical constraints and conventions shaping our current moment. My version of the nineteenth century is a long one, since I look at nineteenth-century rewrites of the eighteenth-century novel "Robinson Crusoe," and I reference a few works of contemporary historical fiction set in the nineteenth century. My analysis centers on trajectories of negative personhood--in particular prisoners, slaves, and vagrant laborers--in accordance with the idea that a nation is defined by how it treats its most oppressed citizens. By comparing a range of transatlantic literary responses to canonical texts, such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Bleak House," I demonstrate that American literature develops an increasingly exclusive model of literacy, whereas British literature advances towards a vision of universal literacy. Texts where African Americans do acquire literacy, such as "The Life and the Adventures of a Haunted Convict," I argue, still perpetuate exclusion and perceived failure to achieve moral growth. I integrate these insights on transatlantic contexts surrounding literacy with contemporary continuities, particularly in prison education and the school-to-prison pipeline. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.) [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]