A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery
The Atlantic world and beyond
Volume I: Slavery, literature and the emotions
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ISBN 9789027246363 | EUR 153.00
| USD 199.00
The first volume of A Comparative Literary History of Modern Slavery explores literary representations of enslavement with a focus on the emotions. The contributors consider how the diverse emotions generated by slavery have been represented over a historical period stretching from the 16th century to the present and across regions, languages, media and genres. The seventeen chapters explore different framings of emotional life in terms of ‘sentiments’ and ‘affects’ and consider how emotions intersect with literary registers and movements such as melodrama and realism. They also examine how writers, including some formerly enslaved people, sought to activate the feelings of readers, notably in the context of abolitionism. In addition to obvious psychological responses to slavery such as fear, sorrow and anger, they explore minor-key affects such as shame, disgust and nostalgia and address the complexity of depicting love and intimacy in situations of domination. Two forthcoming volumes explore the literary history of slavery in relation to memory and to practices of authorship.
[Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages, XXXVI] Expected December 2024. xx, 334 pp. + index
Publishing status: In production
© John Benjamins B.V. / Association Internationale de Littérature Comparée
Table of Contents
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PrefaceSimon Gikandi
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General introductionMads-Anders Baggesgaard, Madeleine Dobie and Karen-Margrethe Simonsen | pp. xi–xxiv
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Slavery, literature and the emotions: IntroductionMadeleine Dobie | pp. 1–15
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Part One. Slavery, sentiment and affect
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Chapter 1. Slavery, sentimentality and the abolition of affectLynn Festa | pp. 18–34
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Chapter 2. Race and affect in Gustave de Beaumont’s Marie, ou L’esclavage aux Etats‑UnisMadeleine Dobie | pp. 35–50
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Chapter 3. Touching difference and colonial space: Niels P. Holbech’s Little Marie on Neky’s ArmHelene Engnes Birkeli | pp. 51–76
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Part Two. Slavery between literary codes
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Chapter 4. In search of home: Fear and the dream of belonging in Leonora Sansay’s Secret History; or, the Horrors of St. Domingo (1808)Jonas Ross Kjærgård | pp. 78–94
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Chapter 5. Showing and feeling the atrocities of slavery: Abolition, human rights violations, and the aesthetics of the drastic in popular German theatre, circa 1800Sigrid G. Köhler | pp. 95–109
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Chapter 6. Politics and faith, slavery and abolition in nineteenth-century Brazilian literature: Maria Firmina dos Reis’s Úrsula (1859) and A escrava (1887)Jane-Marie Collins | pp. 110–135
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Chapter 7. Melodramatic tableaux vivants: Slavery and passionate melancholy in Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda’s SabKaren-Margrethe Simonsen | pp. 136–155
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Part Three. Pity, identifcation and interpellation
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Chapter 8. Before sentimental empire: Slavery, genre and emotion on the seventeenth-century French stageToby Erik Wikström | pp. 158–172
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Chapter 9. “No one can imagine my feelings”: The rhetoric of race, slavery, and emotional difference in the antebellum SouthErin Austin Dwyer | pp. 173–190
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Chapter 10. Orientalism, slavery and emotion: Slave market scenes in early nineteenth-century journeys to the OrientSarga Moussa | pp. 191–207
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Chapter 11. Haunting slavery: The Traumatic Gaze in Uncle Tom’s Cabin and A Romance of the RepublicLori Robison | pp. 208–225
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Part Four. Affective ties: Domination, dependence and reparation
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Chapter 12. Testamentary manumission and emotional bonds in eighteenth-century Saint-DomingueJennifer L. Palmer | pp. 228–240
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Chapter 13. Affection amidst domination in a post-slavery society: Toward a microhistory of compensation in nineteenth-century MartiniqueMyriam Cottias | pp. 241–255
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Chapter 14. Bárbora and Jau: Slavery in the life and poetry of Luís de CamõesAntónio Martins Gomes | pp. 256–272
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Part Five. First-person voices: Silence, trauma and memory
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Chapter 15. Scenes of emotion in French early-modern travel writing from the Caribbean: Du Tertre, Mongin, LabatChristina Kullberg | pp. 274–290
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Chapter 16. Fear and love in Matanzas: Emotional extremis in the works of Juan Franciso ManzanoMarilyn G. Miller | pp. 291–308
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Chapter 17. The blood-stained-gate: An archive of emotion and authenticity in the new slave narrativeLaura T. Murphy | pp. 309–325
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Volume 1. Biographical descriptions | pp. 327–331
Subjects
Literature & Literary Studies
Main BIC Subject
DSB: Literary studies: general
Main BISAC Subject
LIT024000: LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General