Alexandra Urakova: Gift Giving in Uncle Tom's Cabin
Alexandra Urakova discusses her article, ""I do not want her, I am sure": Commodities, Gifts, and Poisonous Gifts in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Professor Urakova sees gift giving in Uncle Tom's Cabin as a disruption within the sentimental context of the narrative. Topsy and Orphelia, Eva and Tom, and Shelby and St. Clare are all complicated and compromised in the act of gift giving or receiving, especially by what it means to give the gift of an enslaved person. Enslavement, spirituality, redemption, and commodification are all put into discussion with each other to expose some interesting complications within the novel. Alexandra Urakova holds a title of docent in North American Studies at the University of Helsinki and is a Kone Foundation research fellow at the University of Tampere, Finland (2021-2024).