Hacking Classical Forms in Haitian Literature

Hacking Classical Forms in Haitian Literature
Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Total Pages : 300
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781000936384
ISBN-13 : 1000936384
Rating : 4/5 (84 Downloads)

Synopsis Hacking Classical Forms in Haitian Literature by : Tom Hawkins

This is the first book to study how Haitian authors – from independence in 1804 to the modern Haitian diaspora – have adapted Greco-Roman material and harnessed it to Haiti’s legacy as the world’s first anti-colonial nation-state. In nine chronologically organized chapters built around individual Haitian authors, Hawkins takes readers on a journey through one strand of Haitian literary history that draws on material from ancient Greece and Rome. This cross-disciplinary exploration is composed in a way that invites all readers to discover a rich and exciting cultural exchange that foregrounds the variety of ways that Haitian authors have ‘hacked classical forms’ as part of their creative process. Students of ancient Mediterranean cultures will learn about a branch of the Greco-Roman legacy that has never been deeply explored. Experts in Caribbean culture will find a robust register of Haitian literature that will enrich familiar texts. And those interested in anti-colonial movements will encounter a host of examples of artists creatively engaging with literary monuments from the past in ways that always keep the Haitian experience in central focus. Written in a broadly accessible style, Hacking Classical Forms in Haitian Literature appeals to anyone interested in Haiti, Haitian literature and history, anti-colonial literature, or classical reception studies.

Derek Walcott and the Creation of a Classical Caribbean

Derek Walcott and the Creation of a Classical Caribbean
Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages : 209
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781474291545
ISBN-13 : 1474291546
Rating : 4/5 (45 Downloads)

Synopsis Derek Walcott and the Creation of a Classical Caribbean by : Justine McConnell

Throughout his career, Derek Walcott turned to the literature and cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. His book-length poem recasting the epics of Homer, Virgil and Dante in St Lucia is best-known in this regard, yet Omeros is only the pinnacle of a lengthy and lively dialogue that Walcott developed between the ancient Mediterranean and the modern Caribbean. Derek Walcott and the Creation of a Classical Caribbean explores how, in developing that discourse between ancient and modern, between Europe and the Caribbean, Walcott refuted the suggestion that to engage with literature from elsewhere was to lack originality; instead, he asserted a place for Caribbean art in a global, transhistorical canon. Drawing on Walcott's own theoretical concerns, this book explores his engagement with Graeco-Roman antiquity from three key perspectives. Firstly, that a perception of time as linear must be coupled with an understanding of it as simultaneous, thereby doing away with the oppressive power of history and confirming the 'New World' on a par with the 'Old'. Secondly, that syncretism lies at the heart of Caribbean life and art, with influences from Africa, Asia, and Europe constituting key parts of Caribbean identity alongside its indigenous cultures. Thirdly, that Caribbean literature creates the world anew without erasing the past. With these three postcolonial conceptions at the heart of his engagement with ancient Greece and Rome, Walcott revealed the reasons why classical reception has been a rich facet of Caribbean artistry.

Medea’s Long Shadow in Postcolonial Contexts

Medea’s Long Shadow in Postcolonial Contexts
Author :
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Total Pages : 276
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781040034408
ISBN-13 : 1040034403
Rating : 4/5 (08 Downloads)

Synopsis Medea’s Long Shadow in Postcolonial Contexts by : Ana Filipa Prata

This interdisciplinary volume explores the ancient Greek myth of Medea and its global analogues found in other mythic and folk tales of deadly, exiled women, such as those of La Malinche and La Llorona, examining the connections between these figures and their depictions from antiquity to modernity. The book considers the figure of the foreign woman, her exile, fratricide, and infanticide, in its ancient Greek form and in global, postcolonial receptions in a range of media, including drama, film, novels, and the visual arts. The chapters illuminate the contradictions of considering the classical Medea as a central reference point for analysis of other female figures from peripheral territories, while simultaneously acknowledging the insights that such comparisons can yield. Emphasizing the ways in which Medea’s seditious nature enables the establishment of an extensive and heterogeneous intertextual network with other mythic characters who represent a similarly disruptive role in their specific local historical and cultural contexts, the book argues for a comparative analysis that is equally attentive to myths and folk tales from all regions. These essays – by scholars of classics, comparative and world literatures, and postcolonial studies – represent a plurality of perspectives from different academic contexts in Africa, Latin America, North America, and Europe and examine how different cultures have depicted women, foreigners, crime, and abjection. The foundations of Greek myth and subsequently of the classical tradition itself are interrogated from a postcolonial perspective. In tracing the portrayals of Medea and other mythic women through the overlapping features of different female characters and plots, and intertwining local cultural and literary materials with broader debates, this volume challenges Eurocentric narratives of power and cultural domination, and works to decentralize the discussion of Medea from the exclusive domain of classical studies. Medea’s Long Shadow in Postcolonial Contexts will be of interest to students and scholars working on Greek tragedy and its reception, as well as tomthose studying postcolonial and global approaches to literature, culture, and gender studies.

The Social Construction of What?

The Social Construction of What?
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 280
Release :
ISBN-10 : 067481200X
ISBN-13 : 9780674812000
Rating : 4/5 (0X Downloads)

Synopsis The Social Construction of What? by : Ian Hacking

Lost in the raging debate over the validity of social construction is the question of what, precisely, is being constructed. Facts, gender, quarks, reality? Ian Hacking’s book explores an array of examples to reveal the deep issues underlying contentious accounts of reality—especially regarding the status of the natural sciences.

Love, Anger, Madness

Love, Anger, Madness
Author :
Publisher : Modern Library
Total Pages : 434
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780812976922
ISBN-13 : 0812976924
Rating : 4/5 (22 Downloads)

Synopsis Love, Anger, Madness by : Marie Vieux-Chauvet

The only English translation of “a masterpiece” (The Nation)—a stunning trilogy of novellas about the soul-crushing cost of life under a violent Haitian dictatorship, featuring an introduction by Edwidge Danticat Originally published in 1968, Love, Anger, Madness virtually disappeared from circulation until its republication in France in 2005. Set in the barely fictionalized Haiti of “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s repressive rule, Marie Vieux-Chauvet’s writing was so powerful and so incendiary that she was forced to flee to the United States. Yet Love, Anger, Madness endures. Claire, the narrator of Love, is the eldest of three daughters who surrenders her dreams of marriage to run the household after her parents die. Insecure about her dark skin, she fantasizes about her middle sister’s French husband, while he has an affair with the youngest sister, setting in motion a complicated family dynamic that echoes the growing chaos outside their home. In Anger, the police terrorize a middle-class family by threatening to seize their land. The father insinuates that their only hope of salvation lies with an unspeakable act—his daughter Rose must prostitute herself—which leads to all-consuming guilt, shame, and rage. And finally, Madness paints a terrifying portrait of a Haitian village that has been ravaged by militants. René, a young poet, is trapped in his family’s house for days with no food and becomes obsessed with the souls of the dead that surround him.

Working Knowledge

Working Knowledge
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 408
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674070042
ISBN-13 : 0674070046
Rating : 4/5 (42 Downloads)

Synopsis Working Knowledge by : Joel Isaac

The human sciences in the English-speaking world have been in a state of crisis since the Second World War. The battle between champions of hard-core scientific standards and supporters of a more humanistic, interpretive approach has been fought to a stalemate. Joel Isaac seeks to throw these contemporary disputes into much-needed historical relief. In Working Knowledge he explores how influential thinkers in the twentieth century's middle decades understood the relations among science, knowledge, and the empirical study of human affairs. For a number of these thinkers, questions about what kinds of knowledge the human sciences could produce did not rest on grand ideological gestures toward "science" and "objectivity" but were linked to the ways in which knowledge was created and taught in laboratories and seminar rooms. Isaac places special emphasis on the practical, local manifestations of their complex theoretical ideas. In the case of Percy Williams Bridgman, Talcott Parsons, B. F. Skinner, W. V. O. Quine, and Thomas Kuhn, the institutional milieu in which they constructed their models of scientific practice was Harvard University. Isaac delineates the role the "Harvard complex" played in fostering connections between epistemological discourse and the practice of science. Operating alongside but apart from traditional departments were special seminars, interfaculty discussion groups, and non-professionalized societies and teaching programs that shaped thinking in sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, science studies, and management science. In tracing this culture of inquiry in the human sciences, Isaac offers intellectual history at its most expansive.

The Darker Face of the Earth

The Darker Face of the Earth
Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages : 114
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781786823267
ISBN-13 : 1786823268
Rating : 4/5 (67 Downloads)

Synopsis The Darker Face of the Earth by : Rita Dove

Published to coincide with its British premiere at the Royal National Theatre, The Darker Face of the Earth is Rita Dove's first play. Set on a plantation in pre-Civil War South Carolina, it has been performed to great critical acclaim.

Technosystem

Technosystem
Author :
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Total Pages : 257
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780674971783
ISBN-13 : 0674971787
Rating : 4/5 (83 Downloads)

Synopsis Technosystem by : Andrew Feenberg

We live in a world of technical systems designed in accordance with technical disciplines and operated by technically trained personnel—a unique social organization that largely determines our way of life. Andrew Feenberg’s theory of social rationality represents both the threats of technocratic modernity and the potential for democratic change.

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies
Author :
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Total Pages : 751
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191662416
ISBN-13 : 0191662410
Rating : 4/5 (16 Downloads)

Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies by : Graham Huggan

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Studies provides a comprehensive overview of the latest scholarship in postcolonial studies, while also considering possible future developments in the field. Original chapters written by a worldwide team of contritbuors are organised into five cross-referenced sections, 'The Imperial Past', 'The Colonial Present', 'Theory and Practice', 'Across the Disciplines', and 'Across the World'. The chapters offer both country-specific and comparative approaches to current issues, offering a wide range of new and interesting perspectives. The Handbook reflects the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of postcolonial studies and reiterates its continuing relevance to the study of both the colonial past—in its multiple manifestations— and the contemporary globalized world. Taken together, these essays, the dialogues they pursue, and the editorial comments that surround them constitute nothing less than a blueprint for the future of a much-contested but intellectually vibrant and politically engaged field.

Forthcoming Books

Forthcoming Books
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 2180
Release :
ISBN-10 : UOM:39015040085766
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 (66 Downloads)

Synopsis Forthcoming Books by : Rose Arny