Journeys of the Slave Narrative in the Early Americas

Front Cover
Nicole N. Aljoe, Ian Finseth
University of Virginia Press, Nov 14, 2014 - Literary Criticism - 256 pages

Focusing on slave narratives from the Atlantic world of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this interdisciplinary collection of essays suggests the importance—even the necessity—of looking beyond the iconic and ubiquitous works of Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Jacobs. In granting sustained critical attention to writers such as Briton Hammon, Omar Ibn Said, Juan Francisco Manzano, Nat Turner, and Venture Smith, among others, this book makes a crucial contribution not only to scholarship on the slave narrative but also to our understanding of early African American and Black Atlantic literature.

The essays explore the social and cultural contexts, the aesthetic and rhetorical techniques, and the political and ideological features of these noncanonical texts. By concentrating on earlier slave narratives not only from the United States but from the Caribbean, South America, and Latin America as well, the volume highlights the inherent transnationality of the genre, illuminating its complex cultural origins and global circulation.

 

Contents

Acknowledgments
24
Bonds of Duty Contracts
Trials and Confessions of Fugitive Slave Narratives
Briton Hammon and CrossCultural Alliances
Rethinking Bondage in A Narrative of the Uncommon
The Alimentary Grammar of Boyrereau
Transatlantic Bricolage
A Bahamian Runaway Slave in Cuba
Literary Form and Islamic Identity in The Life of Omar Ibn Said
Animating Absence
Notes on Contributors
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Journeys of the Slave Narrative in the Early Americas
Nicole N. Aljoe,Ian Frederick Finseth
No preview available - 2014
Journeys of the Slave Narrative in the Early Americas
Nicole N. Aljoe,Ian Frederick Finseth
No preview available - 2014

Common terms and phrases

abolitionist African American Literature African descent Anti-Slavery Arabic archive argues Atlantic slave trade Atlantic world audience authenticity autobiography Black Atlantic bondage Brinch British Briton Hammon Calusa Cambridge captivity narratives Caribbean Carretta Christian colonial Confessions conspiracy context critical Cuba Cuban slavery cultural Denmark Vesey diaspora early slave narrative economic eighteenth century emancipation English enslaved Equiano essay European experience Florida freedom fugitive slave narratives Gage genre Haitian Revolution Hammon’s narrative History human Ibid Ibn Said’s identity Indian captivity insurrection irony Islamic island John Juan Antonio Juan Francisco Manzano labor language literary Madden Marrant master Middle Passage modern Monte Muslim narrators Nat Turner Native Negro Poet nineteenth century Olaudah Olaudah Equiano plantation Poems political racial reader Rebellion rhetorical Said's Saint-Domingue scholars Sekora slave narrative slave ship Spanish story suggests testimony tradition transatlantic translation Uncommon Sufferings University Press Venture Smith violence voice William Winslow writing York

About the author (2014)

Nicole N. Aljoe, author of Creole Testimonies: Slave Narratives from the British West Indies, 1709–1838, is Associate Professor of English at Northeastern University. Ian Finseth, author of Shades of Green: Visions of Nature in the Literature of American Slavery, 1770-1860, is Associate Professor of English at the University of North Texas.

Bibliographic information

TitleJourneys of the Slave Narrative in the Early Americas
New World Studies
EditorsNicole N. Aljoe, Ian Finseth
PublisherUniversity of Virginia Press, 2014
ISBN081393639X, 9780813936390
Length256 pages
Subjects › 

Literary Criticism / Caribbean & Latin American
  
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