Despite long-standing recognition that the constellation of ethical and political ideas developed by the seventeenth-century Natural Law School played an important part in the development of Enlightenment thought, the relationship between the two remains a fertile area of research in intellectual history. Filling a lacuna in existing scholarship, this thesis contends that central tenets of the ethical and political philosophies developed by the Natural Law School were appropriated by the more liberal and progressive contributors to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (1751-1772); which is frequently considered to be the summa of Enlightenment thought, and emblematic of the conflict between the new ‘philosophical spirit’ and the traditional hierarchies, institutions, and values of the ancien régime. It argues that by establishing the loi naturelle and natural rights of the individual as the foundation of both ethics and politics in many of its articles, the Encyclopédie questions the certainty and validity of Catholicism as the basis for both, and that it therefore played an important role in undermining the moral authority of the Church as well as the political authority of the State. In particular, it asserts that the more liberal and humanitarian contributors to the project put the central tenets of Natural Law thinking into practice, in order to tackle and propose reform of what they perceive to be some of the worst injustices in contemporary society, namely with regard to the related questions of slavery and luxury. For those encyclopédistes who believe in universal rights and the loi naturelle, both the slave trade and the attitude of their contemporaries to luxury seem to embody values very different to those they wanted to promote; in their eyes both are representative of a society in which self-interest and the satisfaction of individual passions are valued over and above any consideration for the needs, welfare, and rights of others.

L’esclavage noir en Amérique espagnole des XVIe et XVIIe siècles à travers les documents juridiques. Dans le cadre de ce travail, nous avons traité dans un premier temps la question des différentes justifications de l’esclavage depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’à l’Époque moderne par les théories aristotéliciennes de l’esclavage par nature, les écrits bibliques ainsi que la question raciale telle qu'elle pouvait être perçue à l'époque. La condamnation officielle de l'esclavage des autochtones américains finalement prononcée par les autorités espagnoles va laisser toutes la place au trafic des esclaves d'origine africaine même si le gros des transactions sera laissé aux marchands portugais qui se lancent dans un commerce à grande échelle qui va durer plus de trois siècles. Dans ce contexte, on analyse comment l’homme noir devient « l’autre » depuis le moment de sa capture et de sa vente en Afrique puis durant sa captivité et durant la traversée avant sa revente en Amérique, comment la personnalité ainsi que le droit naturel à la liberté et se gouverner lui-même lui sont ôtées et niées. Il subit une privation générale de ses droits qu’ils soient naturels ou positifs. Par conséquent, l’esclavage commence par un processus de plusieurs phases de transitions brutales jusqu’à son arrivée en Amérique espagnole.Les traductions et transcriptions de documents authentiques et inédits glanés dans les différents dépôts d'archives nous ont permis de composer un corpus de lois de l’esclavage noir le plus exhaustif possible. Son étude approfondie nous permet de dégager des tendances et observer la complexité du monde colonial. En effet, l’Amérique espagnole des XVIe et XVIIe siècle est un monde violent où la personnalité de l’homme noir est saisie presque uniquement à travers la brutalité, notamment le port d’arme, l’ivresse, les vols, les regroupements dans la rue de jour ou de nuit et les fuites qui le mènent à créer des palenques durablement installés dans les montagnes, ce qui provoque l’inquiétude grandissante chez les Espagnols, en peine pour canaliser cette caste noir et mulâtre toujours plus nombreuse en particulier dans les pôles urbains. Ainsi, il est intéressant de montrer quelles sont les relations qu’entretiennent les différents groupes en présence. Les relations sociales en particulier entre Indiens et Noirs sont d’une dureté inattendue même si parfois des élans de solidarités contre l’ennemi commun apparaissent. Grâce au rôle d’intermédiaires entre leur maître et les Indiens, les Noirs dans un sentiment nouveau de supériorité numérique, s’assimilent aux Espagnols et commettent de nombreux abus et mauvais traitements à l’égard des natifs par mimétisme et phénomène compensatoire. Ainsi que nous proposons à travers l’étude de différents documents juridiques, on ne peut lire ce monde de manière manichéenne où la place de chacun n’est pas figée mais plutôt en perpétuel mouvement est composé d’Espagnols oisifs, de Noirs qui s’enfuient pour échapper à leur maître, d’Espagnols qui les aident en leur fournissant des denrées alimentaires pour survivre, d’autres Noirs qui essaient d’occuper des postes assez haut placés réservés aux Blancs, d’autres encore qui devenus affranchis sont faits soldats par les autorités pour assurer la protection des villes portuaires de l’empire, des relations entre Noirs et Indiens tour à tour conflictuelles et solidaires, des mulâtres de plus en plus nombreux. On notera que dans de rares cas, esclaves ou maîtres font preuve de solidarité, d’empathie et de compassion envers autrui. / In this work, we first dealt with the question of the different justifications of slavery from Antiquity to the Early Modern Age through Aristotelian theories of slavery by nature, biblical writings and the racial question as it could be perceived at the time. The processes that lead to the use of Blacks as labour and leading to large-scale slave trade and the different areas of work in which they are employed have been described. In this context, we analyse how the black man becomes "the other" from the moment of his capture and sale in Africa, then during his captivity and the crossing before his resale in America, how the personality as well as the natural right to freedom and to govern himself are taken away and denied. He is subjected to a general deprivation of his rights, whether natural or positive. Therefore, slavery begins with a process of several phases of brutal transitions until it arrives in Spanish Colonial America.The translations and transcriptions of authentic and unpublished documents gleaned from the various archives have enabled us to compile a body of laws on black slavery that is as exhaustive as possible. Its in-depth study allows us to identify trends and observe the complexity of the colonial world. Indeed, Spanish America of the 16th and 17th centuries was a violent world where the personality of the black man was seized almost exclusively through brutality, including the carrying of weapons, drunkenness, robberies, street gatherings during the day or at night and the fleeing that led him to create palenques permanently installed in the mountains, which caused growing concern among the Spanish, struggling to channel this black and mulatto caste ever more numerous, especially in urban centres. Thus, it is interesting to show the relationships between the different groups involved. Social relations, particularly between Indians and Blacks, were unexpectedly harsh, even if sometimes there were surges of solidarity against the common enemy. Thanks to the role of intermediaries between their master and the Indians, Blacks, in a new sense of numerical superiority, assimilated to the Spanish and committed numerous abuses and illtreatment of the natives by mimicry and compensatory phenomena. As we propose through the study of different legal documents, we cannot read this world in a Manichean way where everyone's place is not fixed but rather in perpetual movement is composed of idle Spaniards, Blacks who flee to escape their master, Spaniards who help them by providing them with food to survive, other blacks who tried to occupy fairly high-ranking positions reserved for whites, others who became liberated were made soldiers by the authorities to ensure the protection of the empire's port cities, relations between blacks and Indians, alternating between conflict and solidarity, and an ever-increasing number of mulattoes. It should be noted that in rare cases, slaves or masters show solidarity, empathy and compassion towards others.

PhD (English) / Department of English / See the attached abstract below

In this paper, I invoke a sociolinguistic approach to complement the historical record in order to examine the use of the word utumwa itself as it has changed to reveal distinct class and gender connotations especially in northem Swahili communities. To explore utumwa is difficult. There is no consensus with regard to what the word and its derivatives mean that applies consistently, yet it is clear that there has been a meaning shift since the nineteenth century. This paper examines the construction and transformation of a non-Westem-molded form of service in Africa. Oral traditions and terminological variation will be brought to bear on an analysis of utumwa `slavery, service` as an important concept of social change in East Africa and, in particular, on the northern Kenya coast What this term, its derivatives, and other terms associated with it have come to mean to Swahili speakers and culture bearers will be seen to mirror aspects of the history of Swahili-speaking people fi-om the 1Oth-11th century to the present.

This paper utilizes poststructuralist theory to investigate the polysemic nature of the eponymous character Beloved in Toni Morrison’s 1987 novel Beloved. The ghostly, anachronistic presence of Beloved renders the text open to multiple interpretations and this essay sets out to explore the ways in which meaning is created and communicated. From a poststructuralist perspective, considering that the meaning is in a state of flux, a text weaves its system of meaning around an assumed center in order to provide so-called stability. Peripheral meanings are repressed by the center to secure the meaning system. However, the periphery, which has a constructive function in the organization of the text, also has the deconstructive potential. Hence, the deconstructive dynamics are already inherent in the text. In Beloved, Toni Morrison addresses, among other things, the act of speaking the unspeakable and the process of constructing a new subjectivity out of the ghost of the past. Her text deconstructs the dominant narratives that have marginalized the black motherhood experience, explores the horrors of slavery through horror elements, and eventually exposes the inadequacy of language to depict such horrors. While the textual periphery is enabled to speak louder than the center, the textual subconscious flows freely. The reader is forced to participate actively in meaning-making in order to make sense of the fragmented narrative imbued with deliberate ambiguity. Beloved, as the abject other, defies the phallogocentric symbolic order. A counter-discourse emerges from the maternal, semiotic chora and empowers the otherized heroine Sethe to construct her subjectivity. Delving into the interrelationship between traumatic memory and the act of creating one’s own narrative, the text finds reparative elements in ancestral connection and thereby blends the psychological with the historical and the micro-level with the macro-level of meaning. This paper employs deconstructive key concepts from Jacques Derrida, psychoanalytic key concepts from Julia Kristeva, and seeks to unravel the dynamics in Morrison’s text that enable Beloved to be read polysemically.

Caryl Phillis’s novel Crossing the River tells a story of the African diaspora caused by the slave trade. The novel not only depicts the physical aspect of diasporic life, but also sheds light on the cognitive aspects. It is visible separately in the four chapters, but also in the prologue and epilogue through Phillips’s use of the mystical voice of the disembodied father who addresses all his children of the African diaspora. This essay argues that Crossing the River is an example of black politics of resistance from two different perspectives. Firstly, Phillips uses the African diaspora to exemplify the hybrid identity, and to reject a binary colonial discourse and racism that have caused tremendous suffering for the African diaspora. Secondly, by not only rejecting the binary colonial discourse but also contesting and taking part in shaping a discourse that synthesizes different worlds, Crossing the River takes part in creating a more diverse and equal sense of the world.

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Abstract   The aim of this essay is to explain why Caryl Phillips presents Joyce as "the adopted daughter of Africa" at the end of Crossing the River (1993). This will be done by performing a close reading. This essay will focus on Joyce’s actions and behaviour. Aspects of feminism and postcolonial theory will act as the theoretic basis for the analysis. The analysis of Joyce’s character will be put in relation to the whole of Phillips’ “Black Atlantic” narrative and to gender and third wave feminist theories. The analysis will show that Joyce, by breaking racial norms, renouncing her faith, defying her mother, divorcing her husband, and falling in love with Travis, is the person who defines hope in the novel. Her character, together with her son Greer, shows a path to reconciliation between races in the aftermath of colonialism.

No description available.

No description available.