Symbolic Ecologies
A Conch Shell Poetics for the Haitian Imaginary
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3954227 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Julian H Currents (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 27 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 4-32 |
| Publication date | 2021-09-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Haitian studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1090-3488 • E-ISSN: 2333-7311 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/jhs.2021.0019 |
| OpenAlex | W4285686024 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
This essay proposes a new methodology for assessing postcolonial Caribbean narratives, a poetics based on the biomimetic qualities of a well-known but underaddressed living Caribbean symbol: the conch shell. While this essay positions Haitian author Edwidge Danticat’s 1998 novel The Farming of Bones as its primary text of focus and analysis, I argue that engaging a conch shell poetics provides a bifurcated, temporally nuanced understanding of Caribbean narrative structures more broadly. This methodology interprets the presence of the conch shell in a narrative both as a profoundly symbolic cultural presence, rich with nuance and aesthetic history, and as a nonlinear narrative structure based on the physical structure of the shell itself. Reading Danticat’s novel through this poetics, engaging critical lenses proposed by Kaiama L. Glover and Michelle Wright, I ultimately argue that a conch shell poetics works as a uniquely nonbinary, Caribbean, temporal signifier
Art · Art history · Conch · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Poetics · Poetry · Psychoanalysis · Reading (process · Shell (structure · Sociology · Symbol (formal · The Imaginary · Wright · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Geology · Paleontology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |