“Said, Without Being Asked”

Author(s):  
Sophie White

Drawing on 18th century testimony by enslaved Africans in French colonial Louisiana, and the 1764 interrogatory of Marguerite in particular, the introduction lays out why such court records can be seen as a form of autobiographical narrative. Their words, meticulously recorded according to French court procedure, show that deponents constantly redirected the court’s focus away from the crimes being investigated, veering off subject and offering details that seem extraneous at first glance, but are in fact deeply revealing and very often riveting. Less concerned with whether testimony can tell us whether the events described actually took place, this analysis focuses instead on the medium of testimony as an opportunity for the enslaved to construct a narrative, one that reflected the spontaneity of oral speech, that was anchored in their own experiences, and that brimmed with character, personality, wit, emotions and ways of knowing, one that was autobiographical because it expressed how they looked at their world, how they evaluated it, and made sense of it at that moment in time.

PMLA ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 131 (2) ◽  
pp. 496-504
Author(s):  
Anjali Prabhu

In his fascinating study of accra, ato quays0n quickly alerts his reader to the idea that one must not separate ways of knowing shakespeare from ways of knowing Accra. “Reading” the city as a literary critic, but much more, Quayson gives a discursive framework to his historical account of the material, social, and esoteric life of the city. Underlying the text is an implicit argument with other prominent accounts of African cities, which take a more utopian view and present these cities as mapping the innovative, exciting, and creative possibilities of urban space for the rest of the world. Quayson's mode of history is explicitly linked to storytelling in a number of ways beyond his disclosure that “[t]he retelling of Accra's story from a more expansive urban historical perspective is the object of Oxford Street” (4). From the start, it is also clear that his approach will utilize a broadly Marxian framework, which is to see (city) space in terms of the built environment as well as the social relations in and beyond it: “space becomes both symptom and producer of social relations” (5). But ultimately Quayson's apprehension of his city is Marxian because it recuperates ideas, desires, and creativity from the realm of the unique or inexplicable, of “genius,” to effectively insert them into various systems of production or into spaces that lack them. In so doing Quayson enhances, not hinders, our appreciation of those forms of innovation. Also Marxian is his employment of the “negative,” which refers to the way he splits apart many of the accepted relations between things in the scholarship on the development of the city, the postcolonial African city in particular, and pushes beyond the evidence of the “booming” or “creative” city. Quayson thus binds a more philosophical method of reasoning to his analysis of urban social relations while he straddles different disciplines. His work is illuminated when we locate a personal impulse, which we will track through the autobiographical narrative, to intervene not just in the ways the city is understood but also in the ways it is actually developing.


2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Işık Tamdoğan

AbstractThis article explores and compares cases of sulh (amicable agreement) that are documented in the records of two Ottoman courts—one in Üsküdar, the other in Adana—in the second half of the 18th century. As a dispute resolution practice, sulh draws on three normative systems: shari'a, kanun and 'örf. An abundance of references to sulh agreements in court records testifies not only to the importance of this social practice, but also to complex interrelations between the three normative systems. Sulh documents provide evidence of the interrelation between the shari'a court and other legal arenas. The judges in both Üsküdar and Adana viewed sulh agreements—even those concluded privately and outside of court—as valid and binding. There were, however, significant differences between the two courts regarding the sulh cases; these differences highlight the connection between the location of the court and its specific legal culture.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-21
Author(s):  
Muna Saleh

An autobiographical narrative inquiry exploring possibilities of co-composing curriculum alongside children, youth, families, colleagues, and community members that honours different ways of knowing and being in ways that honours (the poetry of) our grandmothers.


2020 ◽  
pp. 269-285
Author(s):  
Medardo Pelliciari

The paper retraces the relationship between Italian and French art from the late 15th to the early 18th century, by focusing on some relevant episodes related especially to the Pio di Savoia and the Medici families and their connections with members of the French court.


Author(s):  
Patricia Pelley

Contemporary Vietnam is the product of many factors, but several moments in particular stand out. Nam tiến, meaning “Southern Advance,” refers to the migration of people from the Red River Delta, the traditional heartland of Vietnamese civilization, to what are now the central and southern parts of the country. As a result of this process, which unfolded over hundreds of years, two regional polities emerged: Đàng Ngoài (literally “Outer,” meaning northern) and Đàng Trong (literally “Inner,” meaning southern). During the Lê Dynasty (1428–1788), members of two clans began to wield executive power: the Trịnh family in Đàng Ngoài and the Nguyễn family in Đàng Trong. Throughout this period, new social, cultural, and economic patterns also appeared. In the late 18th century Tây Sơn rebels subdued the Trịnh and Nguyễn lords (chúa) and caused the Lê Dynasty to collapse. Instituting the pattern of north–south political unity, the Tây Sơn established the template for monarchs of the Nguyễn Dynasty (1802–1945) and for communist revolutionaries in the 20th century. During the French colonial occupation (1862–1954), colonists thoroughly refashioned the natural and built environments and created new economic realities. By dividing the country into three administrative units—the protectorate of Tonkin (northern Vietnam), the protectorate of Annam (central Vietnam), and the colony of Cochinchina (southern Vietnam)—the colonists further amplified regional identities. The French occupation also directly led to the First Indochina War and clearly contributed to the Second. After Northern Vietnamese (and their allies) defeated Southern Vietnamese (and their allies), a new united national polity emerged: the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, with the Vietnamese Communist Party in command. At the conclusion of both Indochina Wars significant numbers of Vietnamese fled the country. To a striking degree, the ideological differences that divided Vietnamese in earlier decades are still evident in contemporary times.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-38
Author(s):  
Darcy Courtland

In this paper I explore my evolving understandings of literacy and ways of knowing. Using autobiographical narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), the first section of my paper delves into the ways I have previously negotiated concepts of literacy as an educator and novice researcher. In the second section of my paper, I turn towards Indigenous scholarship (Antone, 2003; Cardinal, 2010; Young, 2005) as I embrace my conception of literacy as “life lived” in conjunction with Freire’s (1985) concept of dwelling in uncertainty. By engaging narratively with my own literacy and learning experiences during the first year of my doctoral program, I negotiate uncertainty through three threads of learning: slowing down, being open to vulnerability, and walking humbly in good


2012 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 77-106
Author(s):  
Matt Salyer

The 1772 execution of the Mohegan sailor Moses Paul served as the occasion for Samson Occom's popular Sermon, reprinted in numerous editions. Recent work by Ava Chamberlain seeks to recover Paul's version of events from contemporary court records. This article argues that Paul's "firsthand" account of the case and autobiographical narrative submitted in his appeal illustrate the importance of approaching confessional texts such as Paul's as fundamentally coauthored documents. I argue that both Occom's Sermon and Paul's Petition, which was cowritten with his attorney William Samuel Johnson, construct mediated, communal definitions of "Indianness" and provide an unintentional space for individual narrative autonomy.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Steven Newton

From the 1950s to the 1970s, two sets of scholars – Tom and Joan Flett, and George Emmerson – gleaned many English-language sources to recover aspects of the history of dance in Scotland. They correctly pointed out the pervasive influence of French court culture and the French-trained dancing masters on Scottish forms of dance, including in the Highlands, but did not examine the majority of potential Gaelic sources in their work. This article examines Scottish Gaelic sources referring to dance practices in the Scottish Highlands from the late-seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, placing them within the context of wider European developments in music and dance and confirming that they demonstrate a consciousness of the strong connections with France and corresponding effects on Gaelic dance traditions.


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