J. M. Leichman, K. Bénac-Giroux (eds), Colonialism and Slavery in Performance: Theatre and the Eighteenth-Century French Caribbean

New from Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment:

Colonialism and Slavery in Performance: Theatre and the Eighteenth-Century French Caribbean

Edited by Jeffrey M. Leichman and Karine Bénac-Giroux

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EAN13 : 9781800348042.

65 EUR

368 p.

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This volume brings together new research on eighteenth-century performance in and about the slave-based societies of Saint-Domingue and the Francophone Caribbean for the English-language public. Together, these studies recast early modern France as a trans-Atlantic space whose theatrical culture serves as an index of the tensions of identity and politics resulting from imperial expansion, a legacy that continues to reverberate in contemporary Antillean artistic practice.

• Analyses performances in Saint-Domingue, the most prosperous French colony, to illustrate how the crucible of a brutally racialized colonial space gave rise to a new French identity
• Discusses how European theatregoers reconciled the contradiction inherent in the eighteenth century’s progressive embrace of human rights, with an increasing dependence on the economic spoils of slavery
• Explores the place of performance in representations of the Old Regime Antilles, from the Haitian literary diaspora to contemporary performing artists from Martinique and Guadeloupe

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“Performance, in the eighteenth century as today, retains a unique ability to reflect and mold our social perception; each of these essays confirms this power, offering a range of critical tools and past examples to underscore the long history that led up to this point, and how we might seize on these same representational tools to forge a more equitable future.”

(Read the author’s accompanying blog post)

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Table of Contents:

List of figures

Acknowledgements

JEFFREY M. LEICHMAN and KARINE BÉNAC-GIROUX, Introduction

I. Performance cultures of Saint-Domingue

LOGAN J. CONNORS, The military-theatrical event in French Saint-Domingue

JULIA PREST, The familiar other: blackface performance in Creole works from 1780s Saint-Domingue

BÉATRICE FERRIER, From the abbé Raynal to César Ribié: L’Héroïne américaine on the stages of Saint-Domingue (1787-1788)

BERNARD CAMIER, Jeannot et Thérèse (Clément, Cap-Français, 1758): a question of Creole identity

SEAN ANDERSON, They ‘rolled their eyes, swayed their heads’: criminality, trance and embedded politics in the calenda performances of colonial Saint-Domingue

LAURENCE MARIE, Writing about theatre in Saint-Domingue (1766-1791): a public voice on a public space?

II. Antillean slaves on European stages

CATHERINE RAMOND, Slavery and the colonies on the French stage in the eighteenth century: the emergence of a critical gaze

JEFFREY M. LEICHMAN, On the gratitude of slaves in the theatre of the Revolution

PIERRE SAINT-AMAND, Finishing off the Revolution: La Liberté générale of Citoyen B.

FREDRIK THOMASSON, Moors in the Caribbean, Sámi in the seraglio: Swedish theatre and slavery around 1800

PASCALE PELLERIN, The image of slavery in the theatre during the Egypt expedition

III. Reperforming Caribbean histories

LAURENT DUBOIS and KAIAMA L. GLOVER, Staging revolution: Jean Fouchard, Marie Vieux-Chauvet and writing the theatre of eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue

EMILY SAHAKIAN, LénaBlou and Gilbert Laumord: reactivating history through contemporary Caribbean performance

KARINE BÉNAC-GIROUX, Can one fully grasp history? Some reflections on Histoires de valets, a play performed on 31 May 2017, in Fort-de-France

NADIA CHONVILLE, The experience of gender performativity in the staging of Daniely Francisque’s Ladjablès

Summaries

Bibliography

Index

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Jeffrey M. Leichman is Jacques Arnaud Associate Professor in the Department of French Studies at Louisiana State University, where his research and teaching focus on French theatrical literature and culture. He is also project director for the NEH-supported VESPACE project, an international digital humanities collaboration building an interactive VR model of an eighteenth-century Paris Fair theatre.

Karine Bénac-Giroux is maîtresse de conférences at Université des Antilles. A specialist in questions of personal identity in 18th century comedy, she has opened a field of research on racial/gender  stereotypes in literature and contemporary dance in the West Indies. She is a member of the steering team of the project Matrimoine-Afro-Américano-Caribéen, https://matrimoine.art, and has created several research-creation pieces.

The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.