ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the multiple reframings of the Barbary narrative in post 9/11 American historical discourse as well as in early Republican drama. In its first part, it offers a broad critical survey of the context and scholarship involving the Barbary phenomenon, particularly as they relate to current US political interests and policies in the Middle East. In the second, it addresses the terms and modes of enactment of the Barbary captivity experience in early American plays, and accentuates the rich and powerful symbolism pertaining to the question of freedom inherent in their creative investment of the Barbary frontier. The figuring of Algerian and Tripolitan landscapes as sites of servitude and sexual oppression serves to highlight the paradoxes surrounding domestic debate on the questions of race and gender.
