Antebellum abolitionist writing has long been revered by cultural historians and literary scholars for its social and political role in bringing about the end of slavery in the United States. But what happened to abolitionist texts, which originally urged a pointed and timely social agenda, after emancipation? Most critical conversations around major abolitionist texts focus on their original publications. This study, however, demonstrates the significance of the republication, adaptation, and reception of those texts years later, well after slavery had been abolished but when the many legacies of slavery still defined a rapidly evolving political culture. Drawing on archival research and the methodological tools of book history, “Beyond Obsolescence” traces and analyzes texts that were revised, adapted, and republished during Reconstruction (1863 to 1877)—a time during which linguistic and narrative revisions both reflected and helped to produce the dramatic shifts occurring across the social landscape of the United States. The dissertation investigates a series of case studies that propose a way to read such textual revision in relationship to the shifting political culture of Reconstruction and the changing identities of African Americans within that political culture. Through a consideration of the writings and revised texts of Harriet Jacobs, Lydia Maria Child, William Wells Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and George Aiken, the project demonstrates how writers, editors, and playwrights reshaped their work in response to the demands of their audiences as well as public debates about the meaning of slavery, emancipation, and Constitutional change. These dynamic texts would keep alive a rich tradition of abolitionism even as they underwent revisions to meet the exigencies of a postbellum environment. Ultimately, “Beyond Obsolescence” provides a novel account of some of the most familiar anti-slavery texts and brings to light a crucial but overlooked history of US abolitionist literature. / text

The current work aims at comparing two abolitionist novels written by women in the XIX century, one is Úrsula by the Brazilian writer Maria Firmina dos Reis and the other is Sab by the Cuban writer Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda. This work aims at verifying how the feminine authorship became a political place to denounce the slave regime in Brazil and in Cuba in the XIX century. Regarding the comparative literature theories and applying the intertextuality and interdisciplinary comparative presuppositions, it was carried out an analytical study about the corpus. The relevance of this research lies on rethinking the feminine authorship role in the Brazilian and Cuban literature, as well as revisiting the political, social and cultural factors that guided each one of the authors during the production of their abolitionist works. The work analysis allowed us to identify that both writers had an important role in their national literature. Both Maria Firmina dos Reis as Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda were women who dared to make use of the pen and ink in a time that such practice was exclusive for men. Concerning the critics about the feminine condition, in Brazil and in Cuba, both writers raised their voices and made their writing a space to denounce the injustices lived by the eighteenth-century women in their countries. However, when referring to the racial issue, it was found that the abolitionist position in Úrsula is more connected to the defense of racial equality and altruistic issues, while in Sab, through the representation of a gentle slave, it is observed that the defense of the abolition is more connected to the criollo reformism ideals. / O presente trabalho tem como objetivo comparar os romances abolicionistas de duas autoras do século XIX, a saber, Úrsula, da brasileira Maria Firmina dos Reis e Sab, da cubana Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, a fim de verificar como a autoria feminina constituiu-se como lugar político de denúncia do regime escravocrata, no Brasil e em Cuba, no século XIX. Para que tais objetivos fossem alcançados, realizou-se um estudo analítico do corpus, à luz das teorias da literatura comparada, utilizando-se os pressupostos comparatistas de intertextualidade e interdisciplinaridade. Esta pesquisa justifica-se pela relevância de se repensar o papel da autoria feminina nas literaturas brasileira e cubana, bem como revisitar os fatores políticos, sociais e culturais que levaram cada uma das autoras a produzir uma obra de cunho abolicionista. A análise das obras permitiu identificar que ambas as autoras exerceram um importante papel em suas literaturas nacionais. Tanto Maria Firmina dos Reis quanto Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda foram mulheres que ousaram fazer uso da pena em uma época em que esta prática era quase que uma exclusividade masculina. No que diz respeito às críticas à condição feminina, tanto no Brasil quanto em Cuba, as duas autoras levantaram suas vozes e fizeram de sua escrita um espaço de denúncia para injustiças vivenciadas pelas mulheres oitocentistas nos seus países. Entretanto, no que se refere à questão racial, constatou-se que o posicionamento abolicionista em Úrsula está mais alinhado à defesa da igualdade racial e a questões altruístas, enquanto que em Sab, por meio da representação de um escravo dócil, observa-se uma defesa do abolicionismo mais alinhada aos ideais do reformismo criollo.