Civilization and the poetics of slavery

Bibliographic Data

ID4482071
AuthorsRobbie Shilliam (0000-0002-9966-8574, Queen Mary College, University of London, UK)
Year2012
Volume108
Issue1
Pages99-117
Publication date2012-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThesis Eleven (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0725-5136 • E-ISSN: 1461-7455
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0725513611433765
OpenAlexW2062592165
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited32

Civilizational analysis is increasingly being used to capture the plurality of routes to and through the modern world order. However, the concept of civilization betrays a colonial legacy, namely, a denial that colonized peoples possessed the creative ability to cultivate their own subjecthoods. This denial was especially acute when it came to enslaved Africans in the New World whose bodies were imagined to be deracinated and deculturated. This article proposes that civilizational analysis has yet to fully address this legacy and, to clarify the stakes at play, compares and contrasts the historical sociology of CLR James with the mytho-poetics of Derek Walcott. Both authors, in different ways, have attempted to endow that quintessentially un-civilizable body - the New World slave - with subjecthood. From this discussion, the article makes the case for developing a 'poetics of slavery' that could help to address the colonial strictures still residual in the concept of civilization

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Civilization · Colonialism · Denial · Environmental ethics · Literature · Order (exchange · Poetics · Poetry · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Philosophy · Psychology

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