Introduction

Abstract

Hannabach reveals her interest in blood not merely as a metaphor, but as a deeply material condition for the production of US nationalism and empire. Indeed, the movement between the metaphoric (where blood stands in for kinship, reproduction, violence, and war, among other things) and the material (blood donation and banking practices, blood transfusions and blood products, blood testing and typing) is, Hannabach argues, what defines US national identity across the twentieth century.