Writing for Justice: Victor Séjour, the Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, and the Age of Transatlantic Emancipations

354 Pages·2015·13.066 MB·English

by  Elèna Mortara

American Studies/European History Elèna
mortara
elèna mortar a
“A masterful examination of what must be one of the most intriguing figures of
mid-nineteenth-century American literature, Writing for Justice reflects a refreshing
transnational turn in literary study.” – David I. Kertzer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author
of The Pope and Mussolini and The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara
w
“While there are studies of the Edgardo Mortara case, a biography of Victor Séjour, and
histories of the antislavery movements and of the battle for Jewish emancipation in Europe r
and the Americas, this outstanding book interweaves all these strands successfully into a
freshly researched single work.” – Werner Sollors, Harvard University i
t
“A brilliant book … Elèna Mortara has managed to enhance a haunted family history by
i
devising a fascinating detective story as well.” – Stephen Whitfield, Brandeis University
n
Transnational battles for freedom and g
a personal work of remembrance

f
In Writing for Justice, Elèna Mortara presents a richly layered study of the cultural and
o
intellectual atmosphere of mid-nineteenth-century Europe and the United States, through
close readings of the life and work of Victor Séjour, an expatriate American Creole from
r
New Orleans living in Paris. In addition to writing “The Mulatto,” an early story on slavery
in Saint-Domingue, Séjour penned La Tireuse de cartes (The Fortune-Teller, 1859), a popular
play based on the famed Mortara case. In this historical incident, Pope Pius IX arranged to j
kidnap Edgardo Mortara, the child of a Jewish family living in the Papal States. The details of u
the play’s production – and its reception on both sides of the Atlantic – are intertwined with
s
the events of the Italian Risorgimento and of pre-Civil War America.
t
Writing for Justice is full of surprising encounters with
i
French and American writers and historical figures,
c writing
including Hugo, Hawthorne, Twain, Napoleon
III, Garibaldi, and Lincoln. As Elèna Mortara e
passionately argues, the enormous amount of public
attention generated by the case reveals an era of
underappreciated transatlantic intellectual exchange,
in which an African American writer discussed for justice
oEV
niando vAtaiomnnceisrn iogcf a a ectmoro atshns acttih poea ftc iJooenwnt siin nien rn eEtl.iugrioopues, aans dw teoll tahse r alacrigael rt ebramttlse, sl ifnokri nfrge etdhoem p laignhdt noaft ibolnachkoso d f Transatladgardo Mictor Séjo
nou
Elèna Mortara is a professor of American literature at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. tic Emanrtara, andr, the Kid Victor Séjour, the Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara,
DRHeaa-nMrovtaepmrp, inNogue twhte h HT raCamnsopnsalhtliieornega el: A P Draertsmsouth Series in American Studies cipations the Age napping of and the Age of Transatlantic Emancipations
Cover illustration: Private collection.
Dartmouth
Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s
mortara_age_of_emancipations_mech_ƒ.indd 1 2015-07-15 11:23 AM

writing for justice

re- mapping the transnational
A Dartmouth Series in American Studies
series editor
Donald E. Pease
Avalon Foundation Chair of Humanities
Founding Director of the Futures of American Studies Institute
Dartmouth College
The emergence of Transnational American Studies in the wake of the Cold War
marks the most signifi cant reconfi guration of American Studies since its inception.
The shock waves generated by a newly globalized world order demanded an un-
derstanding of Ame rica’s embeddedness within global and local proc esses rather
than scholarly reaffi rmations of its splendid isolation. The series Re-M apping the
Transnational seeks to foster the cross- national dialogues needed to sustain the
vitality of this emergent fi eld. To advance a truly comparativist understanding of
this scholarly endeavor, Dartmouth College Press welcomes monographs from
scholars both inside and outside the United States.
For a complete list of books available in this series, see www. upne . com.
Elèna Mortara, Writing for Justice: Victor Séjour, the Kidnapping of Edgardo Mor-
tara, and the Age of Transatlantic Emancipations
Rob Kroes, Prison Area, In de pen dence Valley: American Paradoxes in Po liti cal Life
and Pop u lar Culture
Etsuko Taketani, The Black Pacifi c Narrative: Geographic Imaginings of Race and
Empire between the World Wars
William V. Spanos, Shock and Awe: American Exceptionalism and the Imperatives
of the Spectacle in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
Laura Bieger, Ramón Saldívar, and Johannes Voelz, editors, The Imaginary and Its
Worlds: American Studies after the Transnational Turn
Paul A. Bové, A More Conservative Place: Intellectual Culture in the Bush Era
John Muthyala, Dwelling in American: Dissent, Empire, and Globalization
Winfried Fluck, Donald E. Pease, and John Carlos Rowe, editors, Re- Framing the
Transnational Turn in American Studies
Lene M. Johannessen, Horizons of Enchantment: Essays in the American Imaginary

elèna mortara
writing for
justice
Victor Séjour,
the Kidnapping of
Edgardo Mortara, and
the Age of Transatlantic
Emancipations
dartmouth college press
hanover, new hampshire
Dartmouth College Press
An imprint of University Press of New England
www. upne . com
© 2015 Elèna Mortara
All rights reserved
For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book,
contact Permissions, University Press of New E ngland, One Court Street,
Suite 250, Lebanon NH 03766; or visit www . upne . com
Frontispiece: Drawing of Victor Séjour by Étienne Carjat, engraved
by Alexandre Pothey, from Diogène, March 8, 1857, p. 3. Cliché
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-61168-789-7
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61168-790-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61168-791-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data available upon request
In memoriam
Momolo Mortara (1816–1871)
Alberto Mortara (1909–1990)