Poetics of Reparation in M. NourbeSe Philip's &lt;em&gt;Zong!&lt;/em&gt;

Lambert, Laurie R.

doi:10.2979/globalsouth.10.1.06

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…"This chain of names," Fehskens offers, "bears witness to what remains unrecoverable, an historical record of Africans on board the Zong" (2012,415). In this way, Philip forces her readers to account not only for the violence aboard the Zong but also for the violence of archival erasure (Austen 2011, Fehskens 2012, Hartman 2008, Lambert 2016, McKittrick 2014. Drift moves us between, forces us to confront illogic as we drift from sound to sound, borne on the invisible waves of Philip's literary imaginary.…”

Section: Atlantis Journalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impossibility of a Future in the Absence of a Past: Drifting in the In-Between

Boon¹,

Lahey²

2019

atlantis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Atlantis Journalmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impossibility of a Future in the Absence of a Past: Drifting in the In-Between

Boon¹,

Lahey²

2019

atlantis

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Zong! , Throwing the Bones of Ezekiel’s Vision and Singing Them Home

Raz

2023

Political Theology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Comparative counter-archival creativity: M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! and La Vaughn Belle’s Chaney

Johnson

2021

Journal of Aesthetics & Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article presents a comparative analysis of works of Caribbean art and literature that engage in a mutual project of addressing the paradox of the colonial archive. Trinidadian-Canadian writer M. NourbeSe Philip crafted her long poem Zong! from an eighteenth-century legal document about the murder of 132 enslaved Africans onboard the slave ship of the same name. Exposing the dehumanizing language of historical record from which she nonetheless extracts affective and poetic scraps of human experience, Philip shows the power and necessity of artistic intervention in the colonial archive. The similarities between Philip's literary strategies and Belle's artistic interventions in the archive of the Danish (now U.S.) Virgin Islands are striking, and the two illuminate one another. Focusing on Belle's series entitled Chaney (We Live in the Fragments), the analysis delves into her work with "chaney," a Creole term for the colonial-era shards of china that wash out of the soil of the Virgin Islands as a reminder of the centuries-long Danish presence there. Belle's art is both counter-archival and counter-canonical in her direct address to the national Danish institution of the Kongelige Porcelainsfabrik, or Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Factory. Both the poem and the artwork focus on the aesthetic of the fragment, whether in terms of the fragmented nature of the colonial archive with its many blind spots, the fragments of lost narrative that Philip scatters across the page, or the fragments of pottery that Belle transforms into paintings and ceramics that evoke the disjointed nature of Caribbean identity. Framing Zong! and Chaney with the notion of "comparative relativism," the article draws on literary and art historical methodologies to reveal an important transdisciplinary approach to Caribbean archives and to the creation of cultural memory.

show abstract

Poetics of Reparation in M. NourbeSe Philip's <em>Zong!</em>

Cited by 7 publications

References 18 publications

The Impossibility of a Future in the Absence of a Past: Drifting in the In-Between

The Impossibility of a Future in the Absence of a Past: Drifting in the In-Between

Zong! , Throwing the Bones of Ezekiel’s Vision and Singing Them Home

Comparative counter-archival creativity: M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong! and La Vaughn Belle’s Chaney

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About