Fugitives, Smugglers, and Thieves: Piracy and Personhood in American Literature
AuthorSharada Balachandran Orihuela
Cover artistThomas Buttersworth
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPiracy, illegal trade
GenreNon-fiction
PublisherUniversity of North Carolina Press
Publication date
2018
Pages248
ISBN978-1-4696-4092-1
OCLC1083449498

Fugitives, Smugglers, and Thieves: Piracy and Personhood in American Literature is the debut book by Mexican academic Sharada Balachandran Orihuela. It was published by University of North Carolina Press in 2018. It explores piracy and illegal trade in American literature as a form of self-representation by colonial subjects facing abjection due to exclusionary citizenship and property laws.

Content

Balachandran Orihuela explores piracy and illegal trade in American literature. The exclusionary concepts of citizenship resulting in the social, political, and economic isolation of pirates impacts their "racial, national, and gendered identities." She uses the Two Treatises of Government and Commentaries on the Laws of England as the bases of property ownership. In her book, property is part of a "matrix of rights and claims for citizenship."[1] Balachandran Orihuela posits that certain minorities, slaves, and other colonial subjects disenfranchised by citizenship and property laws turned to piracy and illegal trade as a form of self-representation to combat abjection. Balachandran Orihuela investigated pirates, black slaves in the Antebellum South, Mexicans on the Mexico–United States border before the Mexican–American War, and Confederate blockade runners of the American Civil War.[2]

Reception

The book received positive literary reviews in Early American Literature and the Journal of American Studies.[1][3]

Author

Sharada Balachandran Orihuela, an Indian Mexican, was born in Mexico to Rosamaria Orihuela and Gopalan Balachandran.[4] Her father, an Indian academic, had studied at University of Wisconsin–Madison.[5] She is the granddaughter of civil servant P. V. Gopalan.[6] Balachandran Orihuela started formal education in New Delhi and moved frequently between India, Mexico, and the United States.[4] After moving to Oakland, California for college in 2001, Balachandran Orihuela's aunt, biomedical scientist Shyamala Gopalan, helped her cope with race relations in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and later influenced her intellectual trajectory.[5] She is the cousin of lawyer Maya Harris and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.[6] Balachandran Orihuela completed a Bachelor of Arts in English at Mills College.[4] In 2012, she earned a Ph.D. in English at University of California, Davis.[5] Balachandran Orihuela joined the faculty at University of Maryland, College Park in September 2012.[7] As of November 2020, she is an associate professor of English and comparative literature.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 Payton, Jason M. (2019). "Review". Early American Literature. 54 (2): 580–584. doi:10.1353/eal.2019.0051. ISSN 1534-147X. S2CID 198773481.
  2. ↑ "Sharada Balachandran Orihuela". english.umd.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
  3. ↑ Williamson, C. B. (July 2020). "Review". Journal of American Studies. 54 (3): 636–637. doi:10.1017/S0021875820000481. ISSN 0021-8758. S2CID 225635095.
  4. 1 2 3 Balachandran Orihuela, Sharada (January 2012). "Doctoral student highlight" (PDF). La Monarca. Vol. 3. University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Farrell, Liam (November 12, 2020). "First Cousin". The University of Maryland Today. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
  6. 1 2 Ganapathy, Nirmala (2020-08-16). "Kamala Harris' Indian roots remain in focus back home". The Straits Times. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
  7. ↑ "Sharada Balachandran Orihuela". The Chronicle of Higher Education.
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