Brom Bones Meets the Count de Buffon: Race, Biopower, and Natural History in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'.
In Washington Irving's short story 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', animals are everywhere and almost seem interchangeable with humans. Nevertheless, the story's pervasive animal imagery has received scant critical attention. In this paper, I consider the blurring human/animal binary in the story as a...
| Published in: | Comparative American Studies Vol. 21; no. 1/2; pp. 70 - 85 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
Mar-Jun2024
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=176934608&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 176934608 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 14775700 VA2 jtl: Comparative American Studies issn: 14775700 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Mar-Jun2024 vid: 21 iid: 1/2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 176934608 10.1080/14775700.2023.2282239 ppf: 70 ppct: 15 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 357KB tig: atl: Brom Bones Meets the Count de Buffon: Race, Biopower, and Natural History in 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'. aug: au: Campbell, Theo Joy affil: Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA su: Irving, Washington, 1783-1859 Natural history Animal stories Metaphor sug: subj: Irving, Washington, 1783-1859 Natural history Animal stories Metaphor keyword: animal studies biopower early America Washington Irving whiteness studies ab: In Washington Irving's short story 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', animals are everywhere and almost seem interchangeable with humans. Nevertheless, the story's pervasive animal imagery has received scant critical attention. In this paper, I consider the blurring human/animal binary in the story as a proxy for blurred lines between different 'races' of humans coexisting in Early America. Washington Irving uses his satirical Dutch narrator Dietrich Knickerbocker's engagement with the Count de Buffon's Natural History to question categorization based on the interrelated concepts of species and race, which were becoming important in an increasingly biopolitical early United States. I place Irving's engagement with natural history in context before considering the 'racial' tension between the Dutch and the Yankees that Knickerbocker constructs in 'Sleepy Hollow'. Irving marks this tension as satire in part through Knickerbocker's deployment of bears and lions, two animal metaphors with special significance in Buffonian natural history. Close attention to the implications of these metaphors complicates our understanding of Brom Bones, a central but understudied character. I also discuss how this satirical use of race could deepen our understanding of 'Sleepy Hollow's' actual racialized characters. Focusing on the animals in 'Sleepy Hollow' reveals Irving's critique of using science to categorize humans into distinct racial groupings for political convenience and complicates our understanding of how early Americans grappled with the interplay between shifting scientific and political paradigms. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Comparative American Studies is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Comparative American Studies holder: Taylor & Francis Ltd dt: @attributes: year: 2024 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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