Irving’s vision of the “Dutch” origins of the New York in History of New York reminds readers that since post-colonial New York, and the United States, were heavily financed by Dutch loans, the past was still present. Beyond this financial reminder, though, Diedrich Knickerbocker’s narrative commitments to would-be imperialism and knee-jerk p…[Read more]

Explains why we should pay more attention to Hawthorne’s narrative of his discovery of the “mysterious package” in “The Custom House” and Scarlet Letter narrative-arc.

7 page introduction to longer reconsideration of Hawthorne’s career in terms of his conflicted engagements with Patronage Discourse, emerging historiography, and the intersection of electro-magnetics, fashion, and artistic production.

As is usual in such things, argues that everyone else has read something wrong, the something here being…[Read more]

2nd chapter of WIP re hawthorne, custom-house & scarlet letter. VERY rough: provides sketch of what Patronage Discourse entails & its long- and short-term histories with respect to the institutional structures and expectations that conditioned the terms of ‘authorship’ within which Hawthorne tried to develop a career from 1837-1849.

DRAFT of introd chapter of work following the trail of allusions, consequences, etc. that ensues from considering Hawthorne’s discovery narrative in “The Custom-House” as fully implicated in the narrative-arc of events begun with Hester Prynne’s revelation of her elaborate embroidery in 1642.