This dissertation investigates the intersection of nineteenth-century figurative sculpture with an American slave economy whose impact reverberated across time and transnational geographies. Scholars have long acknowledged how sculptural depictions of the enslaved body by Hiram Powers, John Bell, and Francesco Pezzicar played vital roles in dialogues about abolition and Emancipation on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet renewed examination of individual works of art, the terms of their circulation and display, and the markets and regimes of racialized value they occupied suggests that the production and consumption of these statues also unfolded in physical and conceptual proximity with systems of commerce and commodification formed under slavery. Working at the intersection of material culture studies, critical race theory, and legal and literary studies, this study conceives of sculpture as a transactional object that inhabited an interconnected world of art and commerce spanning merchants’ exchanges and cotton factorage houses in the American South, industrial manufacturing firms in Britain, sculptors’ studios and art academies in Italy, World’s Fairs, and private homes. Following an introductory discussion of the entanglement of art and the economy of slavery in nineteenth-century Atlantic spaces writ large, chapters examine the traveling exhibition of Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave in antebellum New Orleans, the manufacture and display of John Bell’s statues depicting enslaved black and mixed- race women in the abolitionist British Atlantic, and the circulation of Francesco Pezzicar’s sculptural commemoration of American slavery between post-Civil War Philadelphia and Risorgimento Italy. From these case studies it is argued that sculpture stood as a highly visible but deeply unstable site from which to interrogate the politics of slavery, on one hand because of the medium’s entanglement with trade and commerce, and on the other because of its relationship to considerations of the corporeal. Nineteenth-century concerns with the animacy of sculpture – long understood as measures of artistic virtuosity in making a statue appear as if it were living – were inextricable from the hierarchies of race and subjectivity that shaped the institution of slavery and its structures of bodily commodification. In raising questions about the motivation and management of subjects and objects in slavery’s wake, this study complicates discussions about the status of the object in art history and criticism while contributing to broader interdisciplinary dialogues concerning race, representation, and the body.

A presente tese de Doutorado tem como principal objetivo analisar as relações de cotidiano e poder no sertão das Minas Gerais, no período de 1850 a 1915. Durante séculos vivenciamos um regime escravista no país. Mesmo depois do seu fim, algumas das características que moldaram a escravidão negra continuaram fazendo parte do nosso cotidiano. As relações de poder, apesar de transformadas em certa medida pelo início de um modelo republicano, não foram suficientes para remodelar por completo o cotidiano de livres, escravos, libertos, homens e mulheres do sertão norte-mineiro, assim como em tantas outras regiões do Brasil. Dessa forma, a tese que ora apresentamos procura dialogar com esse cotidiano, marcado por características como a violência e a solidariedade, a tensão e o afeto, o conflito e a negociação. Elementos que, aparentemente, se apresentam como antagônicos são, na verdade, complementares na estrutura de sobrevivência que se configurou na região, criando assim o que chamados aqui de universo cultural norte-mineiro. O período abarcado para a pesquisa apresenta um objetivo claro: compreender tais relações em dois momentos históricos distintos, o Império e a República, estabelecendo assim comparações entre os dois modelos políticos na região e a conformação social e cotidiana no período. Cotidiano e poder nas relações sociais escravistas e pós-escravidão: o sertão das Minas entre 1850 e 1915 propõe, portanto, mergulhar nas relações sociais e de poder que se deram na região norte-mineira, apontando assim alguns dos significados da sobrevivência na região e nos permitindo mais uma experiência sobre o amplo universo escravista que marcou o Brasil. / This doctorate thesis is meant to examine the relationships of the daily life and power in the state of Minas Gerais during the period of 1850 to 1915. For centuries, the country experienced a slave regime. Even after its end, some of the characteristics that have shaped the black slavery remained as a part of our everyday lives. The relations of power, in spite of changed to some extent by the onset of a republican model, were not sufficient to completely remodel the daily life of free, slaves, freed men and women of the north of Minas Gerais, as well as in many other regions of Brazil. Thus, the thesis that is now presented seeks to dialogue with this everyday life, marked by characteristics such as violence and solidarity, affection and tension, conflict and negotiation. Elements that appear to present themselves as antagonistic are, in fact, complementary to the structure of survival that took shape in the region, thus creating what we call here the norte-mineiro cultural universe. The period covered in the research presents a clear goal: to understand these relationships in two distinct historical moments, the Empire and the Republic Period, establishing comparisons between the two political models in the region and social and daily conformity, during the period. Quotidian and power in the slavery and post-slavery social relations: the backwoods of Minas between 1850-1915 therefore offers a diving in social relations and power that took place in the north of Minas Gerais, thus pointing some of the meanings of survival in the region and allowing us one more experience on the wide universe of slavery that marked Brazil.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, 1925. / Bibliography: p. [99]-103.

Abstract of Thesis (Ph. D.)--Washington University, St. Louis. / On cover: Washington university doctoral dissertations. Bibliography: p. [49]-53.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 358-384). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 425-482). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This thesis is a revisionist study of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a renowned American classic by Mrs. Stowe, and its Chinese translations. Thematically refreshing the novel as imperialist, I intend to therefore shed new lights in appreciating its century-long journey across China by studying two definitive rewritings of the original, heinu yutian lu （《黑奴吁天?》）from late Qing and heinu hen（《黑奴恨》）from the 1960s. The thesis structurally contains four parts. Chapter 1 introduces the project generally. Chapter 2 studies the original text and chapter 3 and 4 the two Chinese translated texts respectively. Re-reading of the original is crucial. Inspired by Edward Said’s efforts in connecting western culture and Imperialism, I established civilizing mission as core of the black narrative in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel widely celebrated as masterpiece of abolitionist literature. My argument is based on textual analysis. I will argue that evangelization of Africa, rather than abolition of slavery, had been Stowe’s fundamental concern in building Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and it is exactly driven by this civilizing mission that she dictated the roles of the novel’s two leading black characters, Uncle Tom and George Harris. Tom, the Christian martyr, is to prove Africans’ capability of getting civilized; Harris, Stowe’s Christian patriot, is the pioneer of colonizing Africa into a new world of Christian and American civilization. Reestablishing the original as such, I interpret the novel’s travel to 20th century China a historical event: an Imperialist novel goes by an Imperialism-fighting country in an Imperialist age. Therefore forces a long-ignored question: how had Chinese translators responded? How the response developed? This question can be best answered by looking into heinu yutian lu and heinu hen, two texts that represent respectively the beginning and the ending of Chinese critical treatment of the original in translating. And I will form my answer by analyzing the Chinese rewriting of the images of Uncle Tom and Harris, for they in the original are responsible for execution of the civilizing mission. Translating under a crucial circumstance of imperial crisis, Lin Shu and Wei Yi, the producers of heinu yutian lu, aimed to promote the ideology of “ loving the country and preserving the race”（??保种）.While presenting the black sufferings as faithful even exaggerated as possible, they consistently infiltrated the novel’s Christianity. And it is this strategy of de-Christianization that undermined the original’s imperialist design. After the translation, both Tom and Harris adopted a new face. The former was still a noble Negro only based on Chinese virtues, and the latter kept well his patriotic passion, but not for Christian civilization, rather purely for Africa. Intervention of the original’s civilizing mission climbed to a higher level as in the case of heinu hen, a drama adaptation by Ouyang yuqian in the radical 1960s. With Marxist class struggle being the guiding principle, Christian humanitarianism of the original was heavily criticized, and the black image reshaped dramatically. With Tom being portrayed as a slave that gradually woke up to his class consciousness, Harris was transformed into a revolutionary hero. / published_or_final_version / Chinese / Master / Master of Philosophy

As a result of its association with marginalized groups, the genre of fable is sometimes presented as accurately reflecting the voice of the Other, although the fable has traditionally always been a vehicle for the elite to establish, explain and justify their positions. While the fable is increasingly associated with the Other from the 1st century CE, the genre is still appropriated by upper-class male authors as a means of defining their positions and constructing their own ideal political, social and literary worlds. This study will focus on the voicing of the Aesopic fable in the literature of the 1st-3rd centuries CE, primarily in authors and works that incorporate one clearly identifiable fable exemplum told at length in the text. Elite authors in this period used the fable as a means of communicating their views of behavioural expectations, not only by appropriating a genre that they have characterized as Other, but also by the voicing of fable through marginalized figures. This appropriation of the othered genre and voice allows for an exploration of boundaries that in the end will reaffirm the established order. The elite appropriation of fable as a means of social control over marginalized groups reflects an uneasiness about their own positions and the increasing social mobility beginning in the 1st century CE. This study of the appropriation of the othered genre will contribute to our understanding of how elite authors dealt with anxieties about potential and actual disruptions in their expectations of the socio-political reality.

As a result of its association with marginalized groups, the genre of fable is sometimes presented as accurately reflecting the voice of the Other, although the fable has traditionally always been a vehicle for the elite to establish, explain and justify their positions. While the fable is increasingly associated with the Other from the 1st century CE, the genre is still appropriated by upper-class male authors as a means of defining their positions and constructing their own ideal political, social and literary worlds. This study will focus on the voicing of the Aesopic fable in the literature of the 1st-3rd centuries CE, primarily in authors and works that incorporate one clearly identifiable fable exemplum told at length in the text. Elite authors in this period used the fable as a means of communicating their views of behavioural expectations, not only by appropriating a genre that they have characterized as Other, but also by the voicing of fable through marginalized figures. This appropriation of the othered genre and voice allows for an exploration of boundaries that in the end will reaffirm the established order. The elite appropriation of fable as a means of social control over marginalized groups reflects an uneasiness about their own positions and the increasing social mobility beginning in the 1st century CE. This study of the appropriation of the othered genre will contribute to our understanding of how elite authors dealt with anxieties about potential and actual disruptions in their expectations of the socio-political reality.