Traversing geographical borders frequently allows people the illusion of crossing social, political, and economic boundaries. For African-Americans of the early twentieth century, crossing physical borders offered the promise of freedom from racial segregation and discrimination in all aspects of social, political, and cultural life. Haiti became a site for African-American imaginings of a free and just society beyond the problem of the color line. From the 1920's through the 1980's, African-American travel writing was strategically deployed in efforts to transform a U.S. society characterized by Jim Crow segregation. In the process, Haiti and the rest of the Caribbean were romanticized as spaces of racial equality and political freedom. This project examines the ways in which the Caribbean has been packaged by and for African-Americans, of both U.S. and Caribbean ancestry, as a place to re-engage with romanticized African origins. In the selling of the Caribbean, cultural/heritage tourism, romance/sex tourism and ecotourism all trade on the same metaphors of loss and redemption of the innocence, equality, and purity found in a state of nature. Through analyses of standard commercial tourism advertising alongside of travel writing, I argue that with the growth of the black middle-class in the late 1980's crossings to the Caribbean have become romantic engagements with an idealized pastoral past believed lost in the transition to middle-class prosperity in the United States. African-American travel writers, writing about the Caribbean, tend to create a monolithic community of cultural belonging despite differences of geography and class, and gender hierarchies. Thus, African-American travelers' tales constitute narratives at the crossroads of celebrations of their economic progress in the United States and nostalgia for a racial community believed lost on the road to suburban prosperity. For them, the Caribbean stands in as the geographical metaphor for that idealized lost community.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Cornell University, 2006. / (UMI)AAI3237639. Adviser: Molly Hite. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-10, Section: A, page: 3809.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4326. Adviser: Siobhan Somerville. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 289-320) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Western Ontario (Canada), 2007. / (UMI)AAINR30853. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: A, page: 3848.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 363-379).

This dissertation analyzes three novels by contemporary female Caribbean and Latin American Afro-descendent writers of the diaspora: Peruvian Lucía Charún-Illescas' Malambo (2001), Brazilian Ana Maria Gonçalves' Um defeito de cor (2006), and Puerto Rican Mayra Santos-Febres' Fe en disfraz (2009). In these texts, the old and the new intermingle in the space of the narrative. The colonial past is reexamined and reconstructed out of the need to understand its reminiscences into the present and the necessity to transform the future. These decolonial narratives of the contemporary African diaspora foster an expression of the interconnection between the two colonial spaces: where the African-descendents, especially the black female, were the objects of submission, and the present time, where the remnants of the past persist. I propose a reading of how the writers decolonize via history, memory, myth, and sex by challenging the construction of the colonial patriarchal rule and rewriting a new history to include the marginalized voices. Decolonization here implies a deconstruction of the image of colored people, especially black women in colonial time where they were deprived of their culture, personhood, and subjectivity. The writers propose a social transformation in which colonialism, racism, sexism, and classism are confronted and a new society is created, without the colonial power structure. The writers return to the roots of power and domination and examine the dynamics of the interconnection of gender, race, class, and sexuality and propose a new gender paradigm.

The main purpose of this dissertation is to understand the emergence of Afro Hispanic American Literature and the causes that delayed its emergence at the end of the twentieth century. I study this process through three novels written in the last decades of the twentieth century as works representative of three national literatures that develop concurrently. These novels are Changó, el gran putas (1983) by Afro-Colombian writer Manuel Zapata Olivella, Jonatás y Manuela (1994) by Afro-Ecuadorian writer Luz Argentina Chiriboga and Malambo (2001) by Afro Peruvian writer Lucía Charún Illescas. The study of these three novels from within their own literary contexts allows for the tracing of national and international developments that made possible the emergence of these minority voices. On the other hand, by placing these texts in a broader historical context allows us to chart a cartography of African roots that although begins in the Caribbean; its horizon expands beyond the Caribbean proper and into the continent. Thus, each novel represents a moment in the African saga in the Americas, a new vision of its history and complex social landscape; and finally a new proposal for the future. Zapata Olivella proposes mestizaje as the ontological base in which Latin American reality was founded and points towards the existence of an African consciousness that is transcontinental. Luz Argentina Chiriboga presents us with the intimate side of history through the tale of two women: Manuela Sáenz and Jonatás, her slave, that represent two sides of the story. Lucía Charún Illescas reconstructs life in Malambo an old slave barracks in colonial Lima and through it unveils hidden worlds in our history. Each novel reconstucts hidden recesses of our history and thus force us to engage in a meaningful dialogue with it and with ourselves.

No description available.

This thesis examines Antiguan narratives’ peculiar engagements with the national question. It draws largely upon the works of four writers—Jamaica Kincaid, Joanne C. Hillhouse, Marie-Elena John and Frieda Cassin—and selected calypsonians including Antigua’s leading female and male calypsonians, Queen Ivena and King Short Shirt. It reads anxiety as the chief organising principle of the singular deconstructions of gender, ‘racial’, ethnic, and class identities undertaken by these texts. I offer a retooled account of anxiety that elaborates the local/regional concept of bad-mindedness informing the core of the narratives’ deconstructive and recuperative projects. Chapter one probes the bad-minded delimiting of Antiguan literary production. It interrogates the singular cohesive Caribbean canon typically suggested by critical readings, which obscure the narratives/ literary traditions of smaller territories such as Antigua. It also highlights locally produced canons’ intervention into the dominant canons/maps of Caribbean literary traditions. Its discussion is underpinned by the concept of bad-mindedness which I use to frame the evils that locate the smaller territory and its inhabitants at the cultural periphery. Chapter two examines the texts’ enunciations of the bad-mindedness inherent in the construction of the composite gendered identities of 19^th century Creole women, 20^th century working-class Afro-Antiguan women and men, and 20^th century proletarian Carib women. It refashions Erna Brodber’s kumbla trope, Kenneth Ramchand’s notion of terrified consciousness, and Jamaica Kincaid’s line trope to elaborate these enunciations. Chapter three examines Antiguan calypsos’ record of the peculiar responses of small-islanders to their subordinate position within the ‘global village’ and continuing entanglement in British colonialism and neo-colonial relationships and processes. It draws upon Charles Mill’s theory of smadditization/ smadditizin’ or the Afro-Caribbean struggle for recognition of personhood and Paget Henry’s account of the dependency theory to analyse the calypsos’ anxious insistence upon Afro-Antiguan personhood. The primary conclusion of my thesis is that an engagement with the neglected literary traditions of the smaller territories and national literatures on the whole, is likely to excavate a cornucopia of currently sidelined experiences, issues, and transnational relationships which can only serve to enrich our postcolonial conversations.

La présente thèse vise à analyser le thème de la mélancolie postcoloniale et son utilisation stratégique dans huit romans de Patrick Chamoiseau (Solibo Magnifique, Texaco, Biblique des derniers gestes et Un dimanche au cachot) et d’Émile Ollivier (Mère-Solitude, Passages, Les urnes scellées et La Brûlerie). Sous l’éclairage de la psychanalyse et de la critique postcoloniale, nous définissons cette notion fondamentale comme suit : un psychisme ambivalent entraîné par la perte ou le manque de certains objets d’attachement ––– objets qui sont en l’occurrence la mémoire collective et/ou le lieu d’appartenance identitaire. Comment et pourquoi ce thème se manifeste-t-il dans notre corpus ? Notre hypothèse est que l’utilisation dudit thème serait plus le résultat de leur choix stratégique que l’effet de leur état psychique. C’est afin d’examiner leurs propres problématiques des construction et perception identitaires dans le contexte postcolonial que ces écrivains mettent en récit une telle situation de manque mnémonique et spatial à travers l’écriture romanesque. Afin de mieux élucider la manifestation textuelle de ce thème, nous divisons celui-ci en deux motifs : la « non-histoire » et le « non-lieu ». En nous appuyant principalement sur les réflexions d’Édouard Glissant, de Takayuki Nakamura et de Marc Augé, nous définissons ces concepts comme deux aspects de la mélancolie postcoloniale : situation de manque de la mémoire collective et celle du lieu d’appartenance identitaire. Nos analyses de ces deux motifs sur un plan stylistique, narratologique, structurel et théorique permettent d’examiner de plus près les points de convergence et de divergence entre l’écriture romanesque de Chamoiseau et celle d’Ollivier. En nous fondant sur les quatre études dans la deuxième partie concernant la mise en récit de la non-histoire, nous analysons les utilisations stratégiques de ce motif afin de voir la mise en récit de la « vision prophétique du passé » (É. Glissant). Nous élucidons ensuite en quoi consiste cette vision temporelle paradoxale : choix de genres littéraires tels que le récit policier (Mère-Solitude et Solibo Magnifique) et le récit du retour au pays natal (Les urnes scellées et Bibliques des derniers gestes). Ce choix narratif se réfère toujours à ce que nous nommons la méthode inductive de la narration. La troisième partie, composée encore de quatre études, éclaire les stratégies de la description du lieu. Nous en déduisons une modalité sui generis de la description spatiale que nous appelons, d’après Marc Augé, l’« évocation prophétique d’espaces ». Cette stratégie descriptive se représente notamment par la spatialisation métaphorique de l’identité créole (Texaco et Un dimanche au cachot) ou migrante (Passages et La Brûlerie). En conclusion, nous résumons ces analyses pour en extraire les points communs et divergents entre les utilisations stratégiques de la mélancolie postcoloniale chez Chamoiseau et Ollivier. Entre autres aspects, nous constatons que la mise en récit de la vulnérabilité due à la mélancolie postcoloniale constitue leur positionnement esthétique et éthique afin qu’ils puissent réfléchir aux constructions et perception identitaires au sein du monde actuel devenu plus que jamais flou et fluide. / The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to analyse the theme of postcolonial melancholia and that strategic utilization in eight novels of Patrick Chamoiseau (Solibo Magnifique, Texaco, Biblique des derniers gestes et Un dimanche au cachot) et Émile Ollivier (Mère-Solitude, Passages, Les urnes scellées et La Brûlerie). From the perspective of psychoanalysis and postcolonial criticism, we define this fundamental notion in the following manner : an ambivalent psychology produced by the loss or lack of some objects of attachement ― objects which in this instance are the collective memory and/or the place of belonging. How and why does this theme manifeste itself in our corpus ? Our hypotheses is that the utilization of this theme would be their strategic choice rather than their psychological condition. It is in order to dissect their own problematics of identity construction and perception in the postcolonial contexte that these authors put into narrative form such situations of mnemonic and spatial lack through the writing of these novels. For the purpose of better clarifying the textual appearance of this theme, we divide it into two motifs : the « non-history (non-histoire) » and the « non-place (non-lieu) ». According to the reflections of Édouard Glissant, Takayuki Nakamura and Marc Augé, we define these concepts as being respectively one of the aspects of the postcolonial melancholia : a situation of lack of the collective memory and of the place of belonging. Our analyses of these two motifs from the stylistic, narratological, structural and theorical perspectives make it possible to examine with meticulous care the points of convergence and divergence of the novel writing between Chamoiseau and Ollivier. Based on four studies in the second part which concerns putting in narrative form of the non-history, we deduce that their strategic utilizations of this motif are actualized by « prophetic vision of past » in the glissantian meaning. We clarify subsequently what this paradoxal vision of time consists in : a choice of the literary genres such as the detective novel (Mère-Solitude et Solibo Magnifique) and the return to the native land (Les urnes scellées et Biblique des derniers gestes). This narrative choice is always supported by what we call the inductive method of narrating. The third part, composed again of four individual studies, throws light on strategies of spatial description. We abstract from these studies a way sui generis of the spatial description which we call, in Augé’s words, the « prophetic evocation of spaces ». This descriptive strategy is represented notably by the metaphorical spatialization of creole identity (Texaco et Un dimanche au cachot) or migrant identity (Passages et La Brûlerie). In conclusion, we summarize these eight studies to extract the points of convergence and divergence between the stratégic utilizations of the postcolonial melancholia in Chamoiseau and Ollivier. Prominently, we notice that the work of putting into narrative form the vulnerability due to the postcolonial melancholia constitutes their aesthétical and ethical standpoints so that they can reflect the identity construction and perception within the today’s world which is more blurred and fluid than ever before.