Castle: Ideologies of Exclusion in American Domestic Space

339 Pages·2017·3.32 MB·English

University of Colorado, Boulder
CU Scholar
English Graduate Theses & Dissertations English
Spring 1-1-2016
Castle: Ideologies of Exclusion in American
Domestic Space
Jennifer Colleen Cookson
University of Colorado at Boulder, [email protected]
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Cookson, CASTLE

CASTLE:
IDEOLOGIES OF EXCLUSION IN AMERICAN DOMESTIC SPACE

by
Jennifer Colleen Cookson
B.A., University of Michigan (English), 2001
M.A., University of Colorado Boulder (Creative Writing), 2005

A thesis submitted to the
Faculty of the Graduate School of the
University of Colorado in partial fulfillment
of the requirement for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of English
2016

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Cookson, CASTLE

This thesis entitled:
Castle: Ideologies of Exclusion in American Domestic Space
written by Jennifer Colleen Cookson
has been approved for the Department of English

Julie Carr (Chair)

Maria Windell

Date

The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we find that
both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards of scholarly
work in the above mentioned discipline.

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Cookson, CASTLE, Abstract

Cookson, Jennifer Colleen (Ph.D., English)
Castle: Ideologies of Exclusion in American Domestic Space
Thesis directed by Associate Professor Julie Carr

ABSTRACT

Castle addresses the rhetorical and ideological patterns that scaffold American concepts
of domestic space, and the legal, literary, and cultural products of those patterns,
focusing specifically on patterns related to private property. Following the example of
recent experimental critics, my project collapses chronology, juxtaposing manifestations
of each pattern to underscore the persistence of their respective ideologies. Also
consistent with the emergent field of experimental criticism, I enlist my own experience
as evidence of the subjectivity and, thus, culpability, of these foundational ideologies.
My first chapter, “Private Property”, addresses this personal culpability most
specifically, exploring the literary and philosophical methods we might enlist to
confront and rewrite the ways in which concepts of “home” are used to justify
structural exclusion. The second chapter, “Election” traces exclusionary concepts of
property from the Puritan doctrine of unconditional election (including its legal
manifestations) through Nathaniel Hawthorne to T.C. Boyle, and self-defense and
domestic violence law. It argues that Stand Your Ground laws’ major legal renovations,
no duty to retreat and immunity from prosecution, parallel those of the Puritan
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Cookson, CASTLE, Abstract
Antinomian (“free grace”) Controversy. Even as the specifics of Puritan election fade
from common moral vernacular, Stand Your Ground laws simulate the persistence of a
still-elect, “original” American community. The third chapter, “Privacy” traces the
affective conventions of revolutionary-era sentimental fiction through to legal privacy
doctrine (as applied to reproductive rights), the rhetoric of neo-liberal choice, and the
rise of the natural-mother imperative. It argues that the absorption of demands for
female autonomy into the persistent structure of sex inequality is a pattern that began
with the Revolutionary-era privatization of female political participation, and that it
repeated itself during both the first wave campaigns for suffrage and the second wave
campaigns for reproductive rights, culminating in a contemporary resurgence of
essentialist motherhood. That is, women keep asking for equality, and they get
maternity and the private sphere. The shapes shift, but the rhetorical patterns persist;
my project attempts to disrupt, both critically and formally, the patterns of privilege
and exclusion that haunt the experience of American domestic space.

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Cookson, CASTLE, Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you, first, to Julie Carr—without her, this project would
still be an unrealized hope. Thank you, too, to the rest of my
committee: John-Michael Rivera, Patricia Sullivan, Joel Swanson,
and Maria Windell—their support and receptivity was truly
invaluable. Thank you to Finn for keeping me company, Scarlett
and Sebastian for both inspiration and levity, and to my friends
and family for listening. Finally, thank you to Chris—only you
really know how hard this was.

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Cookson, CASTLE, Contents

CASTLE:
IDEOLOGIES OF EXCLUSION IN AMERICAN DOMESTIC SPACE

PRIVATE (SPACE), (PUBLIC) PROPERTY 1

“THE ROOT CRITERION” 2

“IF THIS THOUGHT GAINED POSSESSION OF YOU” 20

TRANSMUTATION 48

ELECTION 64

“A MAN’S HOME IS HIS CASTLE”: 65
INCAPACITY TO RETREAT

APPOINTING A PLACE 76

ANTI-: AGAINST; -NOMOS: LAW: 89
ANNE HUTCHINSON V. THE MAGISTRATES

“SEE GOD MAKING ROOME FOR US BY SOME LAWFULL MEANS: 113
IMMUNITY FROM PROSECUTION

APPROPRIATION 143

POSTERITY 171

PERORATION FOR POSTERITY 195

PRIVACY 197

“INTIMATE PUBLIC” 198

“REPUBLICAN MOTHER” 207

SYMPATHY 230
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Cookson, CASTLE, Contents

“FETISH MOTHER” 251

“AN INSULT GOT UP AS A GIFT” 280

EPILOGUE 307

BIBLIOGRAPHY 318

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Cookson, CASTLE, Figures

FIGURES

1924 Bilt-Well Home Plan BW-4250 2
614 Madison Street (front) 4
The Westwood, 1929 Brisk Veneer Sears Honor-Bilt (smoked) 20
The Normandy, 1929 Gordon Van Tine Homes (drawn over) 21
The Crafton, 1935 Sears Honor-Bilt 24
614 Madison Street (kitchen) 26
The Galewood, 1929 Brick Veneer Sears Honor-Bilt 28
“Ouroboros” by Theodoros Pelecanos (1478) 31
The Westwood, 1929 Brisk Veneer Sears Honor-Bilt (tilted) 35
The Collingwood, 1935 Sears Honor-Bilt (flipped) 40
The Collingwood, 1935 Sears Honor-Bilt (full ad) 41
614 Madison Street (transmuted) 48
“Torched Elevator Door and Hallway” 51
“Sphere for Plaza Fountain” by Fritz Koenig 62
“[Force is justified if…]” 67
“Physica Curiosa, Sive Mirabilia Naturæ et Artis Libris 93
“Hydatidiform Mole” 94
“Royall Tyler” (artist unknown) 148
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Cookson, CASTLE, Figures
Royall Tyler Theater, University of Vermont 149
“Whipping of Quakers at the Cart’s Tail in Boston” 151
“Souvenir Portrait of a Lynching” (August 7, 1930) 184
“Am I Next?” 189
“Trayvoning” 192
“intimate public motherhood’ 202
“The Copley Family” (c. 1776) by John Singleton Copley 221
“Origin of the Development of a Sufragette” (c. 1915) 240
“A Patriotic Young Woman” (c. 1877) 242
“She’s Good Enough To Be Your Baby’s Mother” 286
“Sir, You Can’t Bear Armies” 288
“Give Mother the Vote” (1915) 299
“STOP ERA Protest” (1977) 300
“The Monument, marginalia” 311

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