§16§§Immunity's Sovereignty and Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century American Literature §16§s contradictions in literary texts' dramatizations of these transnational events and their attending threats, revealing how democracy's exposure to its own fragility serves as rationale for immunity's sovereignty. This book shows how early U.S. literature, often conceived as a delivery system for American exceptionalism, is in effect critical of such immunitary discourses.§§ §04§§Chapter 1: Immunity's Sovereignty.- §02§§ Rick Rodriguez is Assistant Professor of English at Baruch College, The City University of New York, USA.§