Adopting America

Adopting America
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 235
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199778881
ISBN-13 : 0199778884
Rating : 4/5 (884 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Adopting America by : Carol J. Singley

Download or read book Adopting America written by Carol J. Singley and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American literature abounds with orphans who experience adoption or placements that resemble adoption. These stories do more than recount adventures of children living away from home. They tell an American story of family and national identity. In narratives from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, adoption functions as narrative event and trope that describes the American migratory experience, the impact of Calvinist faith, and the growth of democratic individualism. The roots of literary adoption appear in the discourse of Puritan settlers, who ambivalently took leave of their birth parent country and portrayed themselves as abandoned children. Believing they were chosen children of God, they also prayed for spiritual adoption and emulated God's grace by extending adoption to others. Nineteenth-century adoption literature develops from this notion of adoption as salvation and from simultaneous attachments to the Old World and the New. In domestic fiction of the mid-nineteenth century, adoption also reflects a focus on nurture in childrearing, increased mobility in the nation, and middle-class concerns over immigration and urbanization, assuaged when the orphan finds a proper, loving home. Adoption signals fresh starts and the opportunity for success without genealogical constraints, especially for white males, but inflected by gender and racial biases, it often entails dependency for girls and children of color. A complex signifier of difference, adoption gives voice to sometimes contradictory calls to origins and fresh beginning; to feelings of worthiness and unworthiness. In writings from Cotton Mather to Edith Wharton, it both replicates and offers an alternative to the genealogical norm, evoking ambivalence as it shapes national mythologies.


Adopting America Related Books

Adopting America
Language: en
Pages: 235
Authors: Carol J. Singley
Categories: Literary Criticism
Type: BOOK - Published: 2012-01-01 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

American literature abounds with orphans who experience adoption or placements that resemble adoption. These stories do more than recount adventures of children
Adopting for God
Language: en
Pages: 293
Authors: Soojin Chung
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2021-12-14 - Publisher: NYU Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Explores the role played by missionaries in the twentieth-century transnational adoption movement Between 1953 and 2018, approximately 170,000 Korean children w
Adoption Nation
Language: en
Pages: 424
Authors: Adam Pertman
Categories: Family & Relationships
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-03-17 - Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group USA

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“A treasure. It is the most complete book on adoption—ever—by one of the most eloquent, knowledgeable experts in the field.” —Sharon Roszia, co-author
Adopting in America
Language: en
Pages: 334
Authors: Randall Hicks
Categories: Family & Relationships
Type: BOOK - Published: 2011-09-27 - Publisher: SCB Distributors

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Authored by one of the nation's leading adoption attorneys, ADOPTING IN AMERICA is the ultimate "how to" book for anyone thinking of adopting. Written in a clea
You Can Adopt
Language: en
Pages: 322
Authors: Susan Caughman
Categories: Family & Relationships
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009-08-11 - Publisher: Ballantine Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From Adoptive Families magazine, the country’s leading resource on adoption, this warm, authoritative book is full of practical, realistic advice from leading