Allegories of Desire: Body, Nation, and Empire in Modern Caribbean Literature by Women
This book explores the relationship between famous and fictional Caribbean female bodies to literary and historical writing.

Through her concentration on the perspectives of women writers, her scrupulous attention to the specific histories of the different islands, her interest in diasporic as well as local writing, her embrace of texts in English, French, and Spanish, her insightful exploration of the poetics of allegory, Maude Adjarian invites us to undertake a fundamental rethinking of the concept of national allegory. This criticism is serious and substantial, scholarly and responsible, but also shrewd, engaging and very refreshing.Ross Chambers, Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, The University of Michigan

Caribbean writers and literary-cultural theorists have traditionally associated the Caribbean archipelago and Caribbeanness with the female body. In so doing, however, they have erased not only the bodies but the social, historical and national experiences of real Caribbean women. Allegories of Desire explores the relationship between famous and fictional Caribbean female bodies to literary and historical writing. By looking at the works of six post-1980 Caribbean women writer—Michelle Cliff, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat, J. J. Dominique, Julia Alvarez and Rosario Ferre—M. M. Adjarian uncovers patterns of female bodily resistance to subordination and oppression. These patterns in turban identify the Caribbean and Caribbeanness with ungendered longings for freedom from the imperial twins of patriarchy and North Atlantic colonialism rather than with an imagined, and ultimately exploited, feminine. This compelling study will shed new light on Caribbean literature.

"1132776800"
Allegories of Desire: Body, Nation, and Empire in Modern Caribbean Literature by Women
This book explores the relationship between famous and fictional Caribbean female bodies to literary and historical writing.

Through her concentration on the perspectives of women writers, her scrupulous attention to the specific histories of the different islands, her interest in diasporic as well as local writing, her embrace of texts in English, French, and Spanish, her insightful exploration of the poetics of allegory, Maude Adjarian invites us to undertake a fundamental rethinking of the concept of national allegory. This criticism is serious and substantial, scholarly and responsible, but also shrewd, engaging and very refreshing.Ross Chambers, Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, The University of Michigan

Caribbean writers and literary-cultural theorists have traditionally associated the Caribbean archipelago and Caribbeanness with the female body. In so doing, however, they have erased not only the bodies but the social, historical and national experiences of real Caribbean women. Allegories of Desire explores the relationship between famous and fictional Caribbean female bodies to literary and historical writing. By looking at the works of six post-1980 Caribbean women writer—Michelle Cliff, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat, J. J. Dominique, Julia Alvarez and Rosario Ferre—M. M. Adjarian uncovers patterns of female bodily resistance to subordination and oppression. These patterns in turban identify the Caribbean and Caribbeanness with ungendered longings for freedom from the imperial twins of patriarchy and North Atlantic colonialism rather than with an imagined, and ultimately exploited, feminine. This compelling study will shed new light on Caribbean literature.

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Allegories of Desire: Body, Nation, and Empire in Modern Caribbean Literature by Women

Allegories of Desire: Body, Nation, and Empire in Modern Caribbean Literature by Women

by Maude M. Adjarian
Allegories of Desire: Body, Nation, and Empire in Modern Caribbean Literature by Women

Allegories of Desire: Body, Nation, and Empire in Modern Caribbean Literature by Women

by Maude M. Adjarian

Hardcover

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Overview

This book explores the relationship between famous and fictional Caribbean female bodies to literary and historical writing.

Through her concentration on the perspectives of women writers, her scrupulous attention to the specific histories of the different islands, her interest in diasporic as well as local writing, her embrace of texts in English, French, and Spanish, her insightful exploration of the poetics of allegory, Maude Adjarian invites us to undertake a fundamental rethinking of the concept of national allegory. This criticism is serious and substantial, scholarly and responsible, but also shrewd, engaging and very refreshing.Ross Chambers, Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, The University of Michigan

Caribbean writers and literary-cultural theorists have traditionally associated the Caribbean archipelago and Caribbeanness with the female body. In so doing, however, they have erased not only the bodies but the social, historical and national experiences of real Caribbean women. Allegories of Desire explores the relationship between famous and fictional Caribbean female bodies to literary and historical writing. By looking at the works of six post-1980 Caribbean women writer—Michelle Cliff, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat, J. J. Dominique, Julia Alvarez and Rosario Ferre—M. M. Adjarian uncovers patterns of female bodily resistance to subordination and oppression. These patterns in turban identify the Caribbean and Caribbeanness with ungendered longings for freedom from the imperial twins of patriarchy and North Atlantic colonialism rather than with an imagined, and ultimately exploited, feminine. This compelling study will shed new light on Caribbean literature.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780325070865
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date: 02/23/2004
Series: Studies in Caribbean Literature Series
Pages: 224
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

Maude Adjarian is Associated Researcher, Southwest Institute for Research on Women at the University of Arizona.

Table of Contents

CONTENTSAcknowledgments ixIntroduction: Embodying Desire 11White Skin, Black Masks: Michelle Cliff and the Allegory of a Dream Deferred 152Jamaica Kincaid's Empires of Desire: Imagining History through the Body 513Edwidge Danticat, Jan J. Dominique, and the Cry of Memory 854Of Poets, Patriots, and Patron Saints: Julia Alvarez on the Letter and Spirit of Nation 1195No Master in This Text: The Artful Muses and Magical Re-visionings of Rosario Ferré 151Epilogue: Bodies in Time 185Bibliography 191Index 203
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