American Creoles: The Francophone Caribbean and the American South

265 Pages·2012·4.605 MB·English

by  Martin Munro, Celia Britton

A M ER ICA N CR EOLES
The Francophone Caribbean
and the American South
FRANCOphONE pOSTCOLONIAL STudIES
The annual publication of the Society for Francophone postcolonial Studies
New Series, Vol. 3
Munro Britton, SFPS 3, 2012.indd 1 13/04/2012 11:09:47
Francophone Postcolonial Studies
New Series, Vol. 3, 2012
The annual publication of the Society for Francophone postcolonial Studies
The Society for Francophone postcolonial Studies (SFpS) is an international
association which exists in order to promote, facilitate and otherwise support the
work of all scholars and researchers working on colonial/postcolonial studies in the
French-speaking world. SFpS was created in 2002 with the aim of continuing and
developing the pioneering work of its predecessor organization, the Association for
the Study of Caribbean and African Literature in French (ASCALF). SFpS does not
seek to impose a monolithic understanding of the ‘postcolonial’ and it consciously
aims to appeal to as diverse a range of members as possible, in order to engage in
wide-ranging debate on the nature and legacy of colonialism in and beyond the
French-speaking world. SFpS encourages work of a transcultural, transhistorical,
comparative and interdisciplinary nature. It implicitly seeks to decolonize the term
Francophone, emphasizing that it should refer to all cultures where French is spoken
(including, of course, France itself), and it encourages a critical reflection on the
nature of the cognate disciplines of French Studies, on the one hand, and Anglophone
postcolonial Studies, on the other.
Our vision for this new publication with Liverpool university press is that
each volume will constitute a sort of état present on a significant topic embracing
various expressions of Francophone postcolonial Cultures (e.g., literature, film,
music, history), in relation to pertinent geographical areas (e.g., France/Belgium, the
Caribbean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, Asia, polynesia) and different periods (slavery,
colonialism, the post-colonial era, etc.): above all, we are looking to publish research
that will help to set new research agendas across our field. The editorial board of
Francophone Postcolonial Studies invites proposals for edited volumes touching on
any of the areas listed above: proposals should be sent to professor david Murphy:
[email protected]. Fur further details, visit: www.sfps.ac.uk.
General Editor: Nicki hitchcott (university of Nottingham)
Editorial Board: Chris Bongie (Queen’s university, Canada)
dominique Combe (Wadham College, Oxford, uK/paris III, France)
Charles Forsdick (university of Liverpool, uK)
pierre-philippe Fraiture (university of Warwick, uK)
Sam haigh (university of Warwick, uK)
Alec hargreaves (Florida State university, uSA)
Jane hiddleston (Exeter College, Oxford, uK)
Lieven d’hulst (Ku Leuven, Belgium)
Lydie Moudileno (university of pennsylvania, uSA)
david Murphy (university of Stirling, uK)
Andy Stafford (university of Leeds, uK)
dominic Thomas (uCLA, uSA)
Munro Britton, SFPS 3, 2012.indd 2 13/04/2012 11:09:47
A M ER ICA N CR EOLES
The Francophone Caribbean
and the American South
Edited by
Martin Munro
and
Celia Britton
Liverpool university press
Munro Britton, SFPS 3, 2012.indd 3 13/04/2012 11:09:48
American Creoles
American Creoles
First published 2012 by
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4L iCvearmpoborild Ugen iSvterreseitty Press
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Copyright © 2012 Liverpool University Press and the Society for Francophone
CPoosptycroilgohnti a©l S2t0u1d2i eLsiverpool University Press and the Society for Francophone
Postcolonial Studies
The right of Martin Munro and Celia Britton to be identified as the editors of this
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Pboatoekn thsa As cbte e1n9 8a8s.serted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
sAylslt reimgh, tosr rtersaenrsvmedi.t tNedo, pina rat noyf ftohrims b ooro bky m aanyy bme eraenpsr,o edlueccterdo, nsitco, rmede cinh aan riceatrl,i eval
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pphuobtlioschoepr.ying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the
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Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements viii
Introduction 1
Martin Munro and Celia Britton
Creolizations
Lafcadio hearn’s American Writings and the Creole Continuum 19
Mary Gallagher
Auguste Lussan’s La Famille créole: how Saint-domingue Émigrés
Became Louisiana Creoles 40
Typhaine Leservot
Caribbean and Creole in New Orleans 56
Angel Adams Parham
Creolizing Barack Obama 77
Valérie Loichot
Richard price or the Canadian from petite-Anse: The potential and
the Limitations of a hybrid Anthropology 95
Christina Kullberg
Music
‘Fightin’ the Future’: Rhythm and Creolization in the
Circum-Caribbean 113
Martin Munro
v
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vi American Creoles
Leaving the South: Frantz Fanon, Modern Jazz, and the Rejection of
Négritude 129
Jeremy F. Lane
The Sorcerer and the Quimboiseur: poetic Intention in the Works of
Miles davis and Édouard Glissant 147
Jean-Luc Tamby
Creolizing Jazz, Jazzing the Tout-monde: Jazz, Gwoka and the poetics
of Relation 165
Jerome Camal
Intertextualities: Faulkner, Glissant, Condé
Go Slow Now: Saying the unsayable in Édouard Glissant’s Reading of
Faulkner 183
Michael Wiedorn
Édouard Glissant and the Test of Faulkner’s Modernism 197
Hugues Azérad
The Theme of the Ancestral Crime in the Novels of Faulkner,
Glissant, and Condé 216
Celia Britton
An American Story 230
Yanick Lahens
Notes on Contributors 240
Index 244
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Illustrations
Illustrations
Fig. 1. La Baraqu’ Obama, Sainte-Luce, Martinique. January 2010.
photo courtesy of Anny dominique Curtius. 83
Fig. 2. Rue Barack Obama, Le diamant, Martinique. March 2010.
photo by Valérie Loichot. 83
Fig. 3. Laurent Valère’s Memorial, Anse Cafard, with diamond Rock
in the background. Le diamant, Martinique. March 2010.
photo by Valérie Loichot. 84
vii
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Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
Many of the chapters in this volume were first presented at a conference
organized by the Winthrop-King Institute for Contemporary French and
Francophone Studies at Florida State university in February 2010. We thank
Alec hargreaves for his generous support, Anthony Cond, david Murphy and
Charles Forsdick for their interest in and enthusiasm for this project, and
Teresa Bridgeman for her excellent translation work. We dedicate this volume
to the memory of Édouard Glissant (1928–2011), whose work has inspired a
great number of the essays in this book.
viii
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Introduction
Introduction
Martin Munro and Celia Britton
There is a curious relationship between the birth of an academic field and its
death. In the manifestos and declaration of intent that mark the invention of
a field there is often a recognition of its limitations and an intimation of its
future demise. In some cases there is even a tacit challenge to bring about
and hasten that expiration, or at least quickly to render the field’s initial
manifestations and conceptual apparatus redundant. Such would seem to be
the case with Francophone postcolonial Studies, a field of study that itself
came into being through the end of another, the Association for the Study of
African and Caribbean Literature in French. From the first issues of the new
society’s self-named journal, statements establishing the field and setting its
parameters existed alongside self-reflexive critiques that questioned already
the durability of many of its founding concepts (see, e.g., Assiba d’Almeida,
2003; Britton, 2003; harrison, 2003).
This critical self-questioning has been an important and indeed salutary
element in the subsequent development of the field. Key works edited by
Charles Forsdick and david Murphy have primarily sought to prise open and
‘decolonize’ the terms ‘Francophone’ and ‘postcolonial’: through including
France in their investigations of the former term they emphasize the complex,
connected relationship between France and its former colonies; while by
stressing the importance of French-language works to the postcolonial field
more generally they seek to disrupt the almost exclusively anglophone focus
of that discipline (Forsdick and Murphy, 2009: 4–5). One of the consequences
of the rapid evolution of Francophone postcolonial Studies and its distinc-
tively self-reflexive nature is that its two constituent terms – Francophone
1
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