African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
396 p., In 1804 French Saint-Domingue became the independent nation of Haiti after the only successful slave uprising in world history. Before Haiti explains the origins of this free colored class, exposes the ways its members both supported and challenged slavery, and examines how they created their own New World identity from 1760 to 1804.
335 p., A central premise of this project is that individuals and communities perceive the significance of history differently depending on their historical conditions. Indeed, much of the emphasis on memory studies in the last two decades has been informed by an awareness of changing perspectives on the past. Thus, given its focus on black peoples in the United States and the Caribbean, this dissertation aims to illuminate an emergent historical consciousness in the African Diaspora in the late 20th century. This dissertation is divided into two sections. In Part I, "Ancestors: Exploring Historical Inheritances," I analyze Maryse Conde's Les derniers rois mages (1993) and Patrick Chamoiseau's Texaco (1993) as they interrogate the concept of familial lineage and query the significance of the past imagined as an inheritance. Whereas Chamoiseau questions the ability of written history to represent memory and experience, Conde empties the idea of heritage of all significance as new relationships to the past come to the fore. In Part II, "New Birth: Exploring Discourses of Reproduction," I focus on Gayl Jones' Corregidora (1975) and Audre Lorde's Zami: A New Spelling of My Name (1982) as they reveal the limitations of genealogical discourse. By creating their pasts and imagining their heritage, the characters in these texts challenge the primacy of lineage as they point toward other, more viable networks of community and belonging.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
203 p., Argues for grounding the concept of global subaltern resistance in the legacy of the 1966 Tricontinental in which delegates from the liberation movements of 82 nations came together in Havana, Cuba to form an alliance against imperialism. This alliance, called the Organization of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL) quickly became the driving force of international political radicalism and the primary engine of its cultural production. Because the Tricontinental represents the extension into the Americas of the anti-imperialist union of Afro-Asian nations begun at the 1955 Bandung Conference, it points to a moment in which a diverse range of radicalist writers and artists in the Americas began interacting with its discourse. By tracing the circulation of the Tricontinental's ideology in its cultural production and in related texts from Third Cinema, Cuban Revolutionary film, the Nuyorican Movement, and writings by Young Lords and Black Power activists, Beyond the Color Curtain outlines how tricontinentalists laid the groundwork for a theory of power and resistance that is resurfacing in the contemporary notion of the Global South.
To honor our sacred heritage, to bear the burden and glory of our history, we must self-consciously resume our vanguard role in the midst of the liberation struggles of the world.
Whitten,Norman E. (Editor) and Torres,Arlene (Editor)
Format:
Book, Edited
Publication Date:
1998
Published:
Bloomington: Indiana University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
520 p., Argues that if we are to understand the meanings of blackness in the African diaspora, and elsewhere, we must critically examine paradigms that have emerged over the past five centuries out of Euroamerican racism and black liberation. This work clarifies many issues of cultural representation and social identity in Latin America and the Caribbean.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
Originally published in 1969 in Spanish as Los negros, los mulatos y la Nación Dominicana., 122 p, Contents: The Black population -- The Black population and the national consciousness -- The Constitution of 1801 -- The other face of the reconquest -- "Foolish Spain" and "rebellious Africa" -- Complete unity and national unity.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
326 p., Part of a series listing materials on the history of North America and the Caribbean from 1492 to 1815. Organized thematically, the book covers, among many other topics, exploration and colonization; maritime history; environment; Native Americans; race, gender, and ethnicity; migration; labor and class; business; families; religion; material culture; science; education; politics; and military affairs.
In creating Scourge, a full-length work of hip hop theater, Joseph digs into his ancestral roots to tell the story of Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere with a long and violent history. The piece's main characters are two Haitian-American kids who are torn between their Caribbean roots and urban America where they have grown up.
