Book contents
- Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in American Literature and Culture
- Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction The United States of Apocalypse
- Part I America as Apocalypse
- Part II American Apocalypse in (and out of) History
- Chapter 5 The Puritans Prepare for the Second Coming
- Chapter 6 The American Revolution as Extinction and Rebirth
- Chapter 7 Race, American Enlightenment, and the End Times
- Chapter 8 Sentimental Premonitions and Antebellum Spectacle
- Chapter 9 Antebellum Anticipations of Annihilation
- Chapter 10 The Apocalyptic Fury of the Civil War
- Chapter 11 Apocalyptic Form in the American Fin de Siècle
- Chapter 12 The Ruins of American Modernism
- Chapter 13 Mutually Assured Destruction in Cold War/Postwar America
- Chapter 14 Postmodern American Literature at the End of History
- Chapter 15 Ecology, Ethics, and the Apocalyptic Lyric in Recent American Poetry
- Chapter 16 Disaster Response in Post-2000 American Apocalyptic Fiction
- Part III Varieties of Apocalyptic Experience
- Further Reading
- Index
Chapter 7 - Race, American Enlightenment, and the End Times
from Part II - American Apocalypse in (and out of) History
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2020
- Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture
- Cambridge Themes in American Literature and Culture
- Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Introduction The United States of Apocalypse
- Part I America as Apocalypse
- Part II American Apocalypse in (and out of) History
- Chapter 5 The Puritans Prepare for the Second Coming
- Chapter 6 The American Revolution as Extinction and Rebirth
- Chapter 7 Race, American Enlightenment, and the End Times
- Chapter 8 Sentimental Premonitions and Antebellum Spectacle
- Chapter 9 Antebellum Anticipations of Annihilation
- Chapter 10 The Apocalyptic Fury of the Civil War
- Chapter 11 Apocalyptic Form in the American Fin de Siècle
- Chapter 12 The Ruins of American Modernism
- Chapter 13 Mutually Assured Destruction in Cold War/Postwar America
- Chapter 14 Postmodern American Literature at the End of History
- Chapter 15 Ecology, Ethics, and the Apocalyptic Lyric in Recent American Poetry
- Chapter 16 Disaster Response in Post-2000 American Apocalyptic Fiction
- Part III Varieties of Apocalyptic Experience
- Further Reading
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century visions of apocalypse regarding the future of black lives in the American body politic. It begins with readings of Jefferson’s fear of a black planet in Notes on the State of Virginia and Crèvecoeur’s depictions of racial terror in Letters from an American Farmer. The chapter then investigates the writing of an African American herald of the end times, Christopher MacPherson. The chapter reads the apocalyptic jeremiad of MacPherson’s pamphlet, Christ’s Millennium (1811), as a reparative response to the suppression of black voices and the annihilation of black lives.
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- Apocalypse in American Literature and Culture , pp. 97 - 109Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020