Condé and Schwarz-Bart searched to explore the themes of alienation as Martinicans living in a European French society and the search for an identity that typifies the quintessential Caribbean patriarchal culture. The evolution in consciousness of the female and how she sees herself as part of the diasporic dilemma confronting Caribbean society is marked by the almost limited early works by women authors. As women found their voices and led the way for other women, a natural empowerment ensued with new loyalties as generations transcended the effects of colonialism, indentureship, and slavery.
Analyzes the prominent role played by first wave feminism and by women writers between 1898-1903 as the Jamaica Times articulated a broad-based, middle class nationalism and launched a campaign to establish a Jamaican national literature. This archival material is significant because it suggests a significant modification of anglophone Caribbean feminist, literary and nationalist historiography: first wave feminism was not introduced to Jamaica exclusively through black nationalist organizations in the late 19th and early 20th century, but emerged in a broader phenomenon of respectable, middle class nationalism encompassing Jamaican nationalism and Pan Africanism.
Mohanty,Chandra Talpade (Author), Russo,Ann (Author), and Torres,Lourdes (Author)
Format:
Monograph
Publication Date:
1991
Published:
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
338 p, Includes M. Jacqui Alexander's "Redrafting morality : the post colonial state and the Sexual Offences Bill of Trinidad and Tobago; and Faye V. Harrison's "Women in Jamaica?s urban informal economy: insights from a Kingston slum."
Attempts to develop an indigenous reading of feminism as both activism and discourse in the Caribbean. Draws on the ideas emerging in contemporary western feminist debates pertaining to sexual difference and equality and searches for a Caribbean feminist voice which defines feminism and feminist theory in the region, not as a linear narrative but one which has continually intersected with the politics of identity in the region.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
212 p., This dissertation project aims to contribute to the current scholarship on transnational black feminisms. The project adds to the refining of nuanced theoretical approaches to specific experiences of black women. The author engages in close readings of four black women writers, Michelle Cliff, Joan Riley, Gayl Jones and Audre Lorde, as well as writings from two Black British collectives, the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Decent (OWAAD), and the Outwrite collective, distributers of Outwrite a Women's Newspaper. The readings result in several tropes within black women's discourse of this period, which include belonging and unbelonging, visitation and dismemberment, and living affectivity. The writings and conscious articulations are critical for locating transnational black feminist discourse as a distinct area of theoretical inquiry.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
169 p, "Provides a compelling feminist analysis of gender politics in the works of four major Africana women writers: Toni Morrison, Michelle Cliff, Assia Djebar, and Paule Marshall." (Amazon.com)
"Rican women despite their different generations and social conditions, stand out as leaders who have set an example through decades of feminist struggle." (Ivette Romero-Cesareo)
