Myriam J. A. Chancy
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252043048
- eISBN:
- 9780252051906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043048.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
In this chapter, Caribbean texts are situated within a crossroads space of intracultural, diasporic exchange to engage a reading practice that uncovers the importance of understanding such texts ...
More
In this chapter, Caribbean texts are situated within a crossroads space of intracultural, diasporic exchange to engage a reading practice that uncovers the importance of understanding such texts within the cultural, political, and transnational contexts of their production and dissemination. If, in the past, postcolonial practices focused on displacing, reshaping, or questioning the composition of literary canons, this chapter builds on the previous one to sidestep such questions, or rather to build upon them, by assuming that the utility of the text resides in what it can reveal best about human nature while engaging with the same care and advocacy the epistemes and gnosis of African Diasporic cultures. Texts analyzed include works by Frantz Fanon, Mayotte Capécia, and Mary Seacole.Less
In this chapter, Caribbean texts are situated within a crossroads space of intracultural, diasporic exchange to engage a reading practice that uncovers the importance of understanding such texts within the cultural, political, and transnational contexts of their production and dissemination. If, in the past, postcolonial practices focused on displacing, reshaping, or questioning the composition of literary canons, this chapter builds on the previous one to sidestep such questions, or rather to build upon them, by assuming that the utility of the text resides in what it can reveal best about human nature while engaging with the same care and advocacy the epistemes and gnosis of African Diasporic cultures. Texts analyzed include works by Frantz Fanon, Mayotte Capécia, and Mary Seacole.
Myriam J. A. Chancy
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780252043048
- eISBN:
- 9780252051906
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252043048.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Race and Ethnicity
This chapter concludes the study by examining exchanges between African American and Afro-Caribbean contexts, as expressed in Harlem Renaissance texts. Jacques Rancière’s concepts of engaged ...
More
This chapter concludes the study by examining exchanges between African American and Afro-Caribbean contexts, as expressed in Harlem Renaissance texts. Jacques Rancière’s concepts of engaged spectatorship and subject emancipation are used to analyze intra-African Diasporic exchanges in postcolonial contexts. The chapter focuses on works by writers of the Harlem Renaissance with specific attention to their apprehension of Haitian history and folklore as an expression of autochthonomous realities. The chapter argues that what made it possible for Harlem Renaissance writers to identify with cultures and aesthetics produced by other writers and cultures of the African Diaspora was the movement’s professed search and advocacy for an African American sensibility that would birth a “New Negro” not defined by the state, or by a history of subjugation. Works by Zora Neale Hurston and Claude McKay show an impulse that was not one of domination, such as we see reflected in traditional travel texts, but one of af/filiation (as defined in previous chapters).Less
This chapter concludes the study by examining exchanges between African American and Afro-Caribbean contexts, as expressed in Harlem Renaissance texts. Jacques Rancière’s concepts of engaged spectatorship and subject emancipation are used to analyze intra-African Diasporic exchanges in postcolonial contexts. The chapter focuses on works by writers of the Harlem Renaissance with specific attention to their apprehension of Haitian history and folklore as an expression of autochthonomous realities. The chapter argues that what made it possible for Harlem Renaissance writers to identify with cultures and aesthetics produced by other writers and cultures of the African Diaspora was the movement’s professed search and advocacy for an African American sensibility that would birth a “New Negro” not defined by the state, or by a history of subjugation. Works by Zora Neale Hurston and Claude McKay show an impulse that was not one of domination, such as we see reflected in traditional travel texts, but one of af/filiation (as defined in previous chapters).
