The Epistemological Turn in Early American Literary Studies

This special issue takes stock of the epistemological turn in early American literary studies—the wealth of recent scholarship on New World knowledge production—and showcases the exciting new directions in which this trend is headed. Building on pioneering work in the history of science, Americanists have revised Eurocentric, secular, and Protestant exceptionalist metanarratives of the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment by exploring the conjunction of science and empire in an array of colonial contexts. In so doing, they have resituated conventionally scientific genres, practices, and institutions in a more global frame and have forwarded a more capacious conception of knowledge-making inclusive of Indigenous and African epistemologies as well as Euro-Christian ones. As this trend enters its third decade, participants reflect on its enduring analytical purchase and emergent trajectories.

Contributors: Ralph Bauer, Jennifer Rae Greeson, Jeffrey Glover, Ruth Hill, Alexander Mazzaferro, Liz Polcha, Sarah Rivett, Kimberly Takahata