“Murder, Robbery, Rape, Adultery, and Incest”

Author(s):  
Duncan Faherty

This essay considers how and why Federalist writers turned to the medium of fiction after the Revolution of 1800 in order to continue to express their concerns about the dangers of a Jeffersonian ascendency and the future of national development. By exploring the connections between rhetorical practices before and after Jefferson’s election, I argue that Federalist writers deployed the same tropes and metaphors to reflect on the loss of their authority despite the shift in genre from newspaper editorial to the novel form. Central to this practice was the use of reflections on the Haitian Revolution which served to represent the instabilities of plantation culture and its capacity to erode cultural mores. The essay focuses on Martha Meredith Read’s Margaretta (1807) as an emblematic example of the ways in which Federalist writers sought to deploy representations of planter decadence as a means of critiquing Jeffersonian power. Yet more than simply critiquing Jeffersonianism, Read also seeks to reframe the tenets of Federalism by advocating that properly ordered domestic spheres are the true source of cultural stability.

Shibboleth ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 36-49
Author(s):  
Marc Redfield

Derrida’s study of Celan analyzes shibboleth through the figures of date and circumcision. Celan’s poetic statement in The Meridian offers hospitality to this approach: the poem inscribes and seeks to remain mindful of its date. Derrida elicits the aporia that a date must efface itself, as singular event, to become legible, and notes that in Celan, the poem’s orientation toward an other may be thought as the future anteriority of date. The date can also be effaced or counterfeited, as Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom! dramatizes by phantasmatically effacing the Haitian Revolution as part of its exploration of the threat and promise of the potential illegibility of the shibboleth of race. In Celan, however, shibboleth names the poem’s holding itself open to repetition and to otherness, the otherness of language(s).


2019 ◽  
pp. 177-195
Author(s):  
Michelle Burnham

This chapter reads the dynamics of gender and racial violence in Leonora Sansay’s 1808 novel Secret History in transoceanic context. Even as the French Atlantic triangle generated enormous wealth through enormous exploitation, encounters and events in the transnational Pacific were laying bare the unequal terms and coercive relations that underpinned such triangles and the circuits that spun around them. Set in Saint Domingue during the Haitian Revolution, the novel situates the violence of both marital and plantation intimacies within the turning global circuits of sexual-economic drive and their production of disproportion and inequality. By presenting French European and French creole desire in terms of a sexualized colonialism and a pornographic capitalism, Secret History exposes the rotations of capitalist drive as a violent obscenity, and revolution as its violent offspring.


Author(s):  
Carlos Fonseca Suárez

      Like most revolutionary processes, the history of the Haitian revolution has typically been narrated from the perspective of revolutionary heroes. Whether as the feat of Toussant L’Ouverture, Francois Macandal or Jean-Jacques Dessalaines, historians have often tried to encapsulate the revolution within the narrow margins of human causality. In this article, I attempt to sketch the contours of another possible history: an ecological history in which the feats of the revolutionary heroes give way to the radical power of nature. By focusing on the role that two epidemic phenomena—yellow fever and mesmerism—had within the revolution, I attempt to show how the emergence of an “epidemiological discourse” proved to be fundamental for imagining the outbreak of modern sovereignty as it occurred in Saint-Domingue. Drawing on the ecological history of the Greater Caribbean and the routes of exchange that determined the historical development of its radical environment, the article attempts to imagine what an ecocritical history of the revolutionary process could look like. It lays out a political cartography unlike that which one usually encounters in history books, following a mosquito in its route from Africa to America and retracing the way in which a European pseudo-science—mesmerism—arrived from France to America. The epidemiological discourse surrounding both yellow fever and mesmerism reveals the emergence of a new sociological language capable of figuring the crisis of imperial modes of sovereignty as well as the emergence of new modes of radical subjectivity. Departing from the works Deleuze and Guattari, but also in dialogue with recent debates in ecocriticism, the significance of the Haitian Revolution is reconsidered in its relationship to the emergence of sociology as a language capable of explaining the emergence of the modern political subject par excellence: the modern multitude. Resumen      Como la mayoría de los procesos revolucionarios, la historia de la revolución haitiana usualmente ha sido narrada desde la perspectiva histórica de los héroes revolucionarios. Ya sea como la épica de Toussant L’Ouverture, Francois Macandal o Jean-Jacques Dessalaines, los historiadores han intentado encapsular la revolución dentro de los márgenes de la causalidad humana. En este artículo, intento esbozar los contornos de otra posible historia: una historia ecológica en la que las hazañas de los héroes revolucionarios ceden el escenario al poder radical de la naturaleza. Mediante una articulación del rol que dos fenómenos epidémicos—la fiebre amarilla y el mesmerismo—tuvieron dentro de la revolución, intento demostrar cómo la aparición de un “discurso epidemiológico” demostró ser fundamental en el proceso de crisis de soberanía imperial que ocurrió en Saint-Domingue. Investigando tanto la historia ecológica del Gran Caribe como las rutas de intercambio que determinaron la radicalización de su atmósfera política, el artículo intenta imaginar una historia ecocrítica del proceso revolucionario. A través de una cartografía de las rutas transatlánticas de circulación de un mosquito, así como del desembarco en América de una pseudociencia—el mesmerismo—el artículo esboza una historiografía política distinta. Se escudriña el discurso epidemiológico que giraba en torno tanto a la fiebre amarilla como al mesmerismo en relación con el surgimiento de un nuevo discurso sociológico capaz de representar la crisis de los modelos imperiales de soberanía y el surgimiento de nuevas subjetividades radicales. Partiendo de los trabajos de Deleuze y Guattari, pero también en conversación con los recientes debates sobre la ecocrítica, el significado de la Revolución Haitiana es reconsiderado en relación con el surgimiento de la sociología como el idioma del sujeto moderno por excelencia: la multitud.


Author(s):  
Pâmela Marconatto Marques

O objetivo central do presente ensaio é abordar a Revolução de 1791, evento paradigmático da história haitiana, a partir das narrativas produzidas por alguns de seus intelectuais, que evidenciam o país que ali teve seu berço como lugar de enfrentamento e luta contra a escravidão, onde foi gestada e se disseminou a ideia de liberdade e independência para o restante da América colonizada. Justapondo as narrativas desses intelectuais e suas narrativas adversárias, forjadas no âmago do sistema colonial, esboçamos o modo como o Haiti revolucionário eclode como espaço simbólico de resistência contra todas as tentativas dos colonos – naquele momento, quase todos homens brancos - de impor a desumanização de seus colonizados – homens e mulheres negros/as –. Parece-nos, ao final, que esse espírito de não submissão, não adaptação e não aceitação da lógica e do modelo de dominação impostos será irremediavelmente associado a um “modo de ser haitiano”, um habitus infame, percebido ora como algo positivo e peculiar do povo haitiano, ora  como razão de uma suposta incapacidade de integrar-se ao progresso e ao desenvolvimento. De comum, as narrativas sobre a revolução apontam o Haiti como lugar de denúncia da barbárie imposta por um colonizador surpreendido na aberração de seu discurso civilizatório. Palavras-chave: revolução haitiana; intelectuais haitianos; Michel Roulph-Trouillot; colonialidade.Narrating Revolutions With Feet in Haiti: The Haitian Revolution by Michel-Rolph Trouillot and other Caribbean intellectualsAbstractThe main objective of this essay is to address the Revolution of 1791, a paradigmatic event in Haitian history, based on the narratives produced by some of its intellectuals, which show the country that had its cradle as a place of confrontation and struggle against slavery, where the idea of freedom and independence for the rest of colonized America spread. Juxtaposing the narratives of these intellectuals and their adversarial narratives, forged at the heart of the colonial system, we sketch out how revolutionary Haiti emerges as a symbolic space of resistance against all attempts by settlers - then almost all white men - to impose the dehumanization of their colonized - black men and women -. It seems to us in the end that this spirit of non-submission, non-adaptation and non-acceptance of the logic and model of domination imposed will inevitably be associated with a "Haitian way of being", an infamous habitus, perceived sometimes as something positive and peculiar of the Haitian people, others as the reason for a supposed inability to integrate with progress and development. In common, the narratives about the revolution point to Haiti as a place for denouncing barbarism imposed by a colonizer caught in the aberration of his civilizing discourse.Keywords: Haitian revolution; Haitian intellectuals; Michel Roulph-Trouillot; coloniality.Narrando Revoluciones con los Pies en Haití: La Revolución haitiana por Michel-Rolph Trouillot y otros intelectuales caribeñosResumenEl objetivo central del presente ensayo es abordar la Revolución de 1791, evento paradigmático de la historia haitiana, a partir de las narrativas producidas por algunos de sus intelectuales, que evidencian el país que allí tuvo su cuna como lugar de enfrentamiento y lucha contra la esclavitud, donde fue gestada y se diseminó la idea de libertad e independencia para el resto de América colonizada. Justaponiendo las narrativas de esos intelectuales y sus narrativas adversarias, forjadas en el centro del sistema colonial, esbozamos el modo como el Haití revolucionario eclode como espacio simbólico de resistencia contra todos los intentos de los colonos -en aquel momento, casi todos hombres blancos- de imponer la deshumanización de los colonizados - hombres y mujeres negros/as. Nos parece, al final, que ese espíritu de no sumisión, no adaptación y no aceptación de la lógica y del modelo de dominación impuestos será irremediablemente asociado a un "modo de ser haitiano", un habitus infame, percibido ora como algo positivo y peculiar del pueblo haitiano, ora como razón de una supuesta incapacidad de integrarse al progreso y al desarrollo. De común, las narrativas sobre la revolución apuntan a Haití como lugar de denuncia de la barbarie impuesta por un colonizador sorprendido en la aberración de su discurso civilizatorio.Palabras clave: revolución haitiana; intelectuales haitianos; Michel Roulph-Trouillot; colonialidad.


2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-440
Author(s):  
Kieran M. Murphy

Abstract Contemporary actors and, later, historians and critics have long compared the Haitian Revolution to a tragic play. But the model of tragedy they invoke has changed over time. Today the best-known example comes from The Black Jacobins (1963), in which C. L. R. James narrates the events of the Revolution through the lens of a Hegelian definition of tragedy. David Scott has championed James’s “tragic mode of history” for political reasons, arguing that it is better suited to address the challenges of the postcolonial present. But a tragic mode of history can be of use for the postcolonial present only if it is firmly grounded in the world-changing events that it is supposed to illuminate. It should build on what tragedy was in the milieu of Toussaint Louverture and the slave rebels. To lay the groundwork for this critical shift, this essay traces how tragic performances and history intersected during the Revolution and shows how radicalized versions of Voltaire’s Roman-themed tragedies and Afro-Caribbean mythology and rituals played a prominent part in the fight for equality.


Author(s):  
Sheila Pardee

Alejo Carpentier, Cuban novelist and musicologist, formed important connections between the European and Latin American modern literature of the 20th century. He was a founder of the avant-garde Afro-Cuban movement, incorporating African heritage into Cuban art, theater, and music. Exiled in France from 1929–1939 for political dissent, he associated with surrealists and was for a time heavily influenced by their work. In France, he finished the novel he had started in a Cuban prison: ¡Ecue-Yamba-O! [Praise be to God!] (1933). Following his return to Cuba, a trip to Haiti inspired his novel, El reino de este mundo [The Kingdom of this World] (1948), an imaginative recreation of the Haitian revolution and its aftermath. In his prologue to this novel, he introduced the term lo real maravilloso Americano, or magical realism, as it was later known.


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 464
Author(s):  
Bertin M. Louis Jr.

This essay uses ethnographic research conducted among Haitian Protestants in the Bahamas in 2005 and 2012 plus internet resources to document the belief among Haitian Protestants (Haitians who practice Protestant forms of Christianity) that Haiti supposedly made a pact with the Devil (Satan) as the result of Bwa Kayiman, a Vodou ceremony that launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803). Vodou is the syncretized religion indigenous to Haiti. I argue that this interpretation of Bwa Kayiman is an extension of the negative effects of the globalization of American Fundamentalist Christianity in Haiti and, by extension, peoples of African descent and the Global South.


Imbizo ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thamsanqa Moyo

This article analyses the politics of space and the search for national regeneration in a society that is bifurcated along class, moral, and ethical lines. Whichever way one looks at it, Zimbabwe’s spatialised realities in both denotative and connotative terms stubbornly stand out. Space here is used as a discursive method of inclusion and exclusion. There are opposition spaces, ZANU-PF spaces, church spaces, corrupt spaces and spaces of violence and coercion. What are often dwarfed are those spaces that represent the future, national cohesion and multiculturalism, because they have never been allowed to flourish. This article examines the novel Hatchings (2006) by John Eppel in order to argue that the spaces of national toxicity preponderate over the spaces that represent national development, healing and justice. The article invokes theories of space and place by such theorists as Henri Lefebvre, Setha Low and Ranka Primorac to argue that space is socially produced and imbued with symbolic meaning over and above its physicality. As embodied, space(s) houses metaphors, ideology, behaviours, habits and orientations that can either unhinge or redeem a society depending on the balance of forces at play in given social contexts. What Eppel seems to be suggesting, the article concludes, is that despite the fact that Zimbabwe has been in the tenacious grip of the spaces of looters and immoral personages, the nation possesses within itself spaces for self-renewal that are often ignored or suppressed in the relentless pursuit of self-interest. There is a need for a new national culture and ethos that propels the nation into the future rather than the abyss.


Author(s):  
David Geggus

Set within a larger analysis of class relations in the Haitian Revolution, this is a microhistory that intersects with several important themes in the revolution: rumor, atrocity, the arming of slaves, race relations, and the origins and wealth of the free colored population. It is an empirical investigation of an obscure rebellion by free men of color in the Grande Anse region in 1791. Although the rebellion is obscure, it is associated with an atrocity story that has long resonated in discussion of the revolution. Formerly the least-known segment of Caribbean society, research has shed much new light on free people of color in recent decades, but much remains to be clarified. In certain ways, they are the key to understanding the Haitian Revolution, because of their anomalous position in Saint Domingue society and the way their activism precipitated its unraveling. The Grande Anse region had a unique experience of the revolution in that white supremacy and slavery were maintained there longer than in any other part of the colony. Based primarily on unexploited or little-known sources the article demonstrates the range and depth of research that remains possible and suggests that a regional focus is best way to advance current scholarship on the Haitian Revolution.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 58-70
Author(s):  
Shelby Johnson

Abstract Juliet Granville, the protagonist of Frances Burney’s novel The Wanderer (1814), enters the novel fleeing the French Revolution and disguised in blackface. This article argues that Juliet’s act of racial counterfeiting implicitly gestures toward the Haitian Revolution without naming that historical touchstone and emblematizes a theory of trace histories that Burney articulates in the novel’s dedication. There, she sketches an agonistic vision of history through what she calls “traces,” where events “though already historical, have left traces” that have been “handed down . . . from generation to generation” and tarry in the present. Burney frames the trace as an afterlife of an event that cannot be quite integrated into the broader scope of “history” as such but which leaves behind profound formal remainders. Burney’s dedication thus theorizes how to read Romantic-era novels for those fragments of form, and Juliet’s disguise replots erasures of Caribbean history as a problem of reading.


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