Part of the American Literatures Initiative Series
In the late nineteenth century, American teachers descended on the
Philippines, which had been newly purchased by the U.S. at the end of
the Spanish-American War. Motivated by President McKinley's project of
"benevolent assimilation," they established a school system that
centered on English language and American literature to advance the
superiority of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, which was held up as
justification for the U.S.'s civilizing mission and offered as a promise
of moral uplift and political advancement. Meanwhile, on American soil,
the field of American literature was just being developed and
fundamentally, though invisibly, defined by this new, extraterritorial
expansion.
Drawing on a wealth of material, including historical records,
governmental documents from the War Department and the Bureau of Insular
Affairs, curriculum guides, memoirs of American teachers in the
Philippines, and 19th century literature, Meg Wesling not only links
empire with education, but also demonstrates that the rearticulation of
American literary studies through the imperial occupation in the
Philippines served to actually define and strengthen the field. Empire's
Proxy boldly argues that the practical and ideological work of colonial
dominance figured into the emergence of the field of American
literature, and that the consolidation of a canon of American literature
was intertwined with the administrative and intellectual tasks of
colonial management.
