‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ Grace Nichols and M. NourbeSe Philip. Re-Membering and Healing the Black Female Body

The black African body is a highly historicised space as it has been tortured and traumatised through the processes of enslavement and colonialism. As for the black female body, a raced and gendered space, it has been even more exploited, objectified and fragmented by hegemonic and patriarchal systems. In diasporic Caribbean women’s literature, the black female body is often depicted as a site of tension, and a complex entity struggling to make itself heard outside of historical spaces of oppression and mutilation. This body needs to transcend traumatic memory in order to renew and heal. Grace Nichols’s The Fat Black Woman’s Poems and M. NourbeSe Philip’s She Tries Her Tongue, Her Silence Softly Breaks and A Genealogy of Resistance allow the black female body to be heard beyond intersectional oppressions. This paper seeks to demonstrate how these women writers embody resistance as they assert corporeal visibility and allow transcultural bodies to speak and heal through creative discourse

Slavery and the african cultural legacy in the Caribbean

Con autorización de la editorial para este libro.[EN] The purpose of this book is to raise awareness among a wide audience of one of the most significant and shameful phenomena for humanity, as was the enslavement of over twelve and a half million Africans who were brought to America and forced to work and live as slaves. Many countries participated in the slave trade at different times and withvaried intensity (Great Britain, Portugal, France, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, United States...).[ES] El propósito de esta obra es dar a conocer a un público amplio uno de los fenómenos de mayor trascendencia y vergüenza para la humanidad como fue la esclavización de más de doce millones y medio de africanos que fueron trasladados a América, obligados a trabajar y vivir como esclavos. Muchos países participaron en la trata de esclavos en distintos momentos y con diferente intensidad (Gran Bretaña, Portugal, Francia, España, Dinamarca, Países Bajos, Alemania, Estados Unidos…).Connected Worlds: The Caribbean, Origin of Modern World. This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska Curie grant agreement Nº 823846. This project is directed by professor Consuelo Naranjo Orovio, Institute of History-CSIC.Peer reviewe

"'Ain't I a Woman?' Grace Nichols and M. NourbeSe Philip Re-Membering and Healing the Black Female Body", 135

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Dans les entrailles de l\u27Histoire. Le dépassement des espaces traumatiques chez Edwidge Danticat

Myriam Moise, chercheuse pour le Laboratoire Caribéen de Sciences Sociales (Université des Antilles), présente l\u27auteur haitiano-americain, Edwidge Danticat, qui dans ses écrits met en lumière les espaces culturels et historiques subalternes qui permettent de dépasser les traumas de l\u27histoire

Myriam Moïse, "Transcending Normative Labels in Diasporic Women's Literature: From Stable Identities to Limbo Subjectivities", 33

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L'exès en tous lieux dans l'oeuvre d' Edwidge Danticat

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Les femmes écrivains afro-caribéennes au Canada et aux États-Unis : la diaspora peut-elle parler?

Cette thèse étudie les spécificités du discours produit par les femmes écrivains de la diaspora afro-caribéenne au Canada et aux Etats-Unis, notamment chez Edwidge Danticat, Nalo Hopkinson, Jamaica Kincaid, Paule Marshall, M. NourbeSe Philip, et Olive Senior. La position ambivalente de ces auteures qui sont culturellement dedans et dehors influence leurs écrits, en prose comme en poésie, dans lesquels elles revendiquent leurs histoires, leurs corps et leurs langues. La discussion s’attache à observer les opérations discursives en démontrant que les auteures étudiées articulent de nouvelles formes de subjectivité et prouvent que la formation des identités culturelles ne dépend pas d’un territoire stable, mais plutôt d’un espace culturel mobile, voire volatile. D’une part, ces femmes réécrivent le passé dans un discours qui déstabilise les versions hégémoniques de l’histoire et d’autre part, elles cherchent à représenter leurs corps en dépassant leur dimension matérielle et choisissent d’embrasser leur schizophrénie culturelle. Leurs projets brisent le silence et libèrent les subjectivités incontrôlées à travers la création de polyphonies incarnées, de multiples contre discours et d’énoncés non-conformistes. Les constructions discursives de leur moi ne pouvant en effet se manifester qu’à l’extérieur des terminologies canoniques, ces auteures s’inscrivent dans une démarche de résistance au discours unique et privilégient a fortiori une rhétorique hétéroglossique. En somme, cette analyse comparative est innovante en ce qu’elle démontre que mémoires, langues et identités diasporiques sont intimement liées, et qu’au delà de leurs démarches respectives et des stratégies discursives qui leur sont propres, ces auteures sont des écrivains du limbo qui, à la manière des danseurs de limbo, transforment l’instabilité en une expérience de recréation artistique. Elles placent leurs représentations au coeur d’une dynamique empreinte de mouvement, de fluidité, de pluralité et d’hybridité, et prouvent clairement que la diaspora féminine caribéenne peut faire entendre sa voix.This dissertation examines the specific discourse produced by diasporic African Caribbean women writers in Canada and the USA, namely Edwidge Danticat, Nalo Hopkinson, Jamaica Kincaid, Paule Marshall, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Olive Senior. These authors’ ambivalent positions as both cultural insiders and outsiders are conveyed through their prose and poetry, in which they reclaim their histories, bodies and tongues. The thesis highlights discourse operations in demonstrating that the selected authors articulate new forms of subjectivity, hence proving that cultural identities do not depend on static territories but rather on mobile and even volatile cultural spaces. Besides reconstructing the past through a discourse that truly unsettles hegemonic versions of history, African Caribbean diasporic women writers represent their bodies beyond materiality and choose to embrace their cultural schizophrenia. Their projects consist in un-silencing the unruly selves through the creation of embodied polyphonies, multiple counter-voices and anti-conformist utterances. The discursive constructions of the self therefore occur outside of canonical terminology, as these women writers resist single-voiced discourse and favour heteroglossic rhetorics. Ultimately, this comparative literary analysis is innovative as it proves that diasporic memories, tongues and identities are interlinked, and that beyond their respective agendas and personal discursive strategies, these authors are limbo writers who, like limbo dancers, transform instability into a recreative and artistic experience. They inscribe their self-representations into a powerful dialectic of movement, fluidity, plurality and hybridity, and truly demonstrate that the feminine Caribbean diaspora can speak

For a New Genealogy of Negritude

[EN] This paper explores, by approaching the works of Suzanne Roussi-Césaire and Paulette Nardal, how Negritude ideology was embraced by men and women through their essays, novels, poetry and art work. Martinican women intellectuals, writers and artists have not been voiceless, they have articulated their visions and have provided major statements on the complexities of African Martinican identity construction.[PT] Esse artigo procura explorar, por meio da análise de publicações de Suzanne Roussi-Césaire e Paulette Nardal, como a ideologia da Négritude foi abraçada por homens e por mulheres por meio de seus ensaios, romances, poesias e obras de arte. As intelectuais, escritoras e artistas martinicanas não permaneceram em silêncio, elas articularam suas visões e forneceram importantes análises sobre as complexidades da construção da identidade africano-martinicana.This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Maria Sklodowska Curie grantPeer reviewe

Diasporic Caribbean Women Transcending Dystopian Spaces and Reconnecting Fragmented Identities

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Antillean Women and Black Internationalism. The Feminine Genealogy of Negritude

This project has received funding from the European Union´s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Maria Sklodowska Curie grantPeer reviewe